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bIGITAL VIDEO TRANSPORT SYSTEM IN THE WORLD.

t, Live broadcast events. CAN supertrunking. Post production. Distance learning. High

quality backbone transport. Cable headend consolidation. Just some of the ways the

DV6000 video transport system delivers multiple channels of high resolution, 2.4 Gb/s

video over fiber. Using an uncompressed digital format, the DV6000 moves more

channels, with higher quality, over longer distances than any other transport system.

The DV6000 is a highly versatile fiber optic transport system offering:

• Transport of QAM, MMDS, HITSTm and other digital video services

• Compatibility with all video standards (NTSC, PAL, SECAM,

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• Centralized scrambling, VBI insertion and subscriber control

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Without Wavetek's PathTrar system, you could look at this return path puzzle forever and still not find the solution. Return path trouble The problem is right

somewheie ben,. «le and the 11, _ . . . ere's no way to know when it stilted or where

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New PathTrak Performance Monitoring System

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detects small ingress problems before they become big ones • Isolates tile exact problem • Stores historical

perfarmance data to aid in future repairs • Provides remote spectrum

anal,yzer view of noise. at the headerbd or hub. The return path puzzle:

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WAvŒ-rmic

in perspective

Marrying business with technology

1 n a former life, I was a professional newspaper photographer, and I always loved the feeling of knowing when I had "one in the can." Translated, that means knowing I had a picture of front-page quality.

After returning from the Western Cable Show, that feeling is back—for a number of different reasons. Those of you who have been on the trade-show circuit know that monstrous shows typically leave you with one of two feelings: pure elation or complete exhaustion. And sometimes, both.

This year's show, for me, was the former. Outside of digital video and the other lead topics of the show, for the first time since the hype began on high-speed Internet access and the deployment of data services, it really feels like our industry has a legitimate shot at securing the lead in the quest for data customers. And, there's much forethought

going into the decisions related to both the tech-nology and business aspects of this new ser-vice. That hasn't always been the case in our industry's 50-year history.

For the last few years, CED has been tuned into this industry's technical renaissance. Maybe it was the shot the telcos fired

Understanding the business of

technology will be paramount as we go forward

ROB STUEHRK, PUBLISHE:R

over our bow a few years ago or maybe it sprang from a new generation of customers who expect more convenience and information. Whatever the reason, it's no longer just technology, or business, as usual.

Today, technology doesn't happen in a vacuum. Technology decisions have ramifi-cations for all aspects of a cable system's operations, including marketing, administra-tion, customer service, and yes, even public policy. I think Dick Green from CableLabs said it well in our November issue. "We must look at the business perspective of OpenCable and technology in general and turn it around to the business/revenue side . . . and the business of technology is where CableLabs will focus most of its attention." CED has always been a technology magazine; we have no intention of throwing out

the baby with the bathwater. But the fact is, understanding the business of technolo-gy will be paramount as we go forward into a new, competitive era. By recognizing this trend, and capitalizing on it, we're convinced that we've got "one in the can." Conversations at the Western Show with readers and advertisers alike have shown an overwhelmingly positive response to the business-of-technology mentality.

This issue is the launch point for our new, enhanced editorial mission. You've undoubtedly noticed the new physical look to CED as well. Our facelift is designed to enhance your reading time and expand your horizons. That's a big statement, but one we feel strongly about.

New sections devoted to advanced networking and broadband business and man-agement have been added. There are also expanded sections on new products, fiber optics and the technological news driving our industry, each with an eye on the busi-ness implications. Overall, CED magazine is committed to covering your industry with the same zeal and passion as it has for the past 22 years.

It's great to have that old feeling coming on strong again. Happy New Year.

CED CO...CATION» Exult...alma at Du...

PUBLISHER • Robert C. Striehrk [email protected]

EDITORIAL EDITOR • Roger Brown [email protected]

MANAGING EDITOR • Dana Cervenka [email protected]

ASSOCIATE EDITOR • Michael Lafferty [email protected]

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Leslie Ellis, FIlic299@aoLcom

Fred Dawson, Craig Kuhl

CONSULTING ENGINEERS CHAIRMAN

Wendell H. Bailey, President, Strategic Technology International

MEMBERS Jim Chiddix, CTO, Tune Warner Cable

Stephen D. Dukes, VP Technology, TCI Technology Ventures

David Fellows, Sr. VP, Engineering and Technology, Media0ne

Tom Jokers!, Sr. VP, Engineering, Charter Communications

Earl Langenberg, Consultant Dave Large, Principal, Media Connections Group

Robert Le, Vice Chairman, TV/Corn Int'l Pete Smith, VP Engineering, Rifkin & Associates Joe Van Loan, Senior VP & COO, Mediacom LLC

SALES DIRECTOROF SALES & MARKETING • SON/ C Snyder

[email protected]

REGIONAL SALES MANAGERS Linda S. SOP), men Lssommer@aoLcom

Michael Tangney, [email protected] Todd Manquez, [email protected] SALES ASSISTANT • Shannon Sanchez

CLASSIFIED SALES 800/866-0206

ART & PRODUCTION DESIGN DIRECTOR • lrasema Rivera

iriveraechilton.net ART DIRECTOR • Don Ruth

[email protected] ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR • Anney Grossberg

[email protected]

GROUP PRODUCTION MANAGER • Julie Jacowleff PRODUCTION MANAGER • Johanna McGinnis

[email protected]

ADDRESS 600 S. Cherry St., Suite 400

Denver, CO 80222 303/393-7449; Fax 303/393-6654

WEB SITE littp://wuw.cedmagazine.com

CIRCULATION & SUBSCRIBER SERVICES CIRCULATION DIRECTOR

Maria Gottlieb; 212/887-8565 ASSOCIATE CIRCULATION MANAGER

Shawn Green; 212/887-8564 SUBSCRIBER SERVICES

CED, P.O. Box 10728, Riverton, NJ 08076-0728 Telephone: 609/786.0501; Fax: 212/887-8493

[email protected]

GROUP VP • William McGorry GROUP PUBLISHER • Tom Brooksher

CHILTON PUBLICATIONS Leon C. Hujnagel Jr., President

1111 O'Brien, Sr. VP Communications Group

VBPA le,;r2.10*

6 CED/JANUARY 1998

Non -Standby Power

Standby Power

CableUPS Uninterruptible Power

!

Node Power

-I mI. :11=

Reliable power is critical to ensuring the

overall reliability of any communication

network. With more than 500,000 power installatiols worldwide

and over two decades of industry experience, Alpha provides a full

range of re'iable communication power products. Introducing UPS-

grade uninterruptible power to the Cable Television industry in 1989,

Alpha continues to provide the industry wth products that ersure

clean, reliable power in even the most demandirg operating conditions.

Alpha's product offering includes a full I ne of Cable Televis on and

Telecommunication power supplies, enclosures, batteries and

accessories. Investigate the [Power] of Alpha @ www.alpha.com Reader Service

ALPHA:1- E CHNOLOGIES 3761 Alpha Way Bellingham, WA 38226 Tel: 360-.641-2360 Fax. 30-671-4936 Web: wwwaiphamm ñ-r

smonth JANUARY 1998

Van of the year—Alex Best

2 0 Fimily committed to rolling out new businesses like digital

video, telephony and high-speed data, Cox Communications' Alex Best

is going where other engineering executives fear to tread. Because of his

fearless outlook, coupled with the engineering savvy he has poured into

Cox's telecom networks, Alex is being honored as CED's Man of the

Year for 1997. This profile reveals why Alex has won his peers' respect

as both an engineer, and a human being.

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROD REILLY

Cable gets data blast at Western

52 Today's question is: who's not offering high-speed data

modems? Engineers attending the recent Western Cable Show were bom-

barded with new modems, new modem chips, and more ways to craft

compelling content to run on them. And the Show offered much more

in terms of new technology, including numerous solutions for cleaning

up the return path and the latest in network monitoring and manage-

ment tools. CED's show wrap-up also includes coverage of educational

sessions, with tips on the hottest emerging business/technology opportu-

nities, as well as reports on the deployment of digital technology.

©1998 Chilton Publications All rights reserved. CEO is a registered trademark of Chilton Publications. CEO CUSPS 330-510) (ISSN 1044-2871) is published monthly except twice in May by Chilton Publications, 825 7th Ave., New York. NY 10019. Volume 24, Number 1. U.S. domestic subscriptions are $54. Outside USA, subscriptions are $75 for surface delivery or $96 for air speed delivery, prepaid in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. branch bank. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY 10019 and additional mailing offices. CEO is published on behalf of the cable television and broadband communications industries. POST-MASTER: Please send address changes to CEO Circulation, P.O. Box 10728, Riverton, NJ 08076-0728. MEMBERS OF THE BPA. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product (Canadian distribution) Sales Agreement No. 649945. Printed in U.S.A.

8 CED/JANUARY 1998

O NE COMPANY HAS

DELIVERED MORE SATELLITE

BROADBAND RF TECHNOLOGY

TO THIS PLANET THAN ANYBODY.

egf you were thinking the "digital revolution" has eliminated the need for crisp, clean analog signals in the headend, you'd be wrong. In fact, the quality of picture demanded by today's subscribers is higher

than ever. DVSR9000 DigiCipher IRD

That's the very reason Standard Communication's quest for quality has established the company as the headend specialist, leading the industry in

Agile IRDII Udeo Cipher advancing broadband RF technology.

Standard pioneered the industry's first frequency-agile modulators for 550 MHz system architecture. The TVM Series product changed forever the perception that agile was a compromise. From the

TVM Series to the Stratum Modulation System, Standard has consistently set the standards by which others are measured. But we didn't stop there. We offered the CATV industry its first full-featured IRD to fit a single EIA rack spare, deliver textbook video specifications, and satisfy the demand for performance even in the harshest environments.

Now digital compression is here and Standard Communications Corporation continues to establish the benchmark with advanced tech-nology, unique design and practical features. With a reputation built on delivering advanced technology,

you can be assured there is more to come. To see more of our products and learn more about the line, visit

our website at http:11www.standardcomm.com.

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thismonth JANUARY 1 9 9 8

FiberLine

78 Choosing the right fiber splice closure makes all the dif-

ference in keeping the cable plant running efficiently. Here's a

review of what's been learned by telcos and cable companies.

Advanced Networking

84 Business applications over cable networks. What steps should operators consider if

they want to tap the lucrative commercial high-speed

data market? This article supplies the answer.

Which way to the data bonanza? Operators

ponder the best route to making cable modems

maninstream.

Broadband Business

100 While cable telephony has yet to get off the ground

in the U.S., in the Netherlands, cable operator A2000 has success-

fully launched residential telephony service and is planning an

even broader product offering in the near future. With a recent

commitment to Tellabs for $100 million worth of telephony gear,

A2000 is taking the cablephone business very seriously.

Jack Methven of A2000 and Bob Fordham of Tebbe

1 COLUMNS

6 In perspective

102 In the loop

122 Capital currents

DEPARTMENTS

12 Upfront

99 Product showcase

101 Business briefs

106 New products

110 Reader service guide

112 Company index

113 Calendar

114 Internet directory

115 Classifieds

, nee' orieritation .a in taging

dra catee!

Reader Service

5

Introducing the

"Sidewinder" Finally, a way to put more information in less space.

You have to see it to believe it. Call 800-257-2448 for a sample today.

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A comprehensive, flexible field tool.

The HP CaLan 3010R/H is the one tool that does

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• Signal-level measurements (including digital signals)

Highlights of the HP CaLan 3010R/H include: • Ingress Detection

When ingress corrupts return path communi-cation, the headend unit transmits a display of the ingress image to the field unit for immediate troubleshooting.

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Reader Service

6

rha HEWLETT PACKARD

upfront LATEST NEWS AND INSIGHT

GI nails

In an unprecedented move, General Instru-ment (which also

announced it was changing its name back to GI from NextLevel) said last month that it had reached an agreement with nine major cable MSOs for "up to 15 million" digital set-tops, in exchange for those operators becoming equity investors in the company. The deal is reportedly worth about $4.5 billion over the next three to five years, according to GI officials.

In a separate yet related deal, GI also said it had acquired the digital transport and authorization functions of Tele-Communications Inc.'s Headend in the Sky (HITS) organization, in exchange for a 10 percent stake in GI.

Although the MSOs were not specif-ically named, GI said they represent "about half of the entire cable industry"

Under terms of the announced deal, GI will give MSOs who purchase set-tops stock warrants that will allow those

4 billion digital deal operators to purchase up to 16 percent of GI equity for about $15 per share. The warrants will vest only as set-tops are actually shipped between 1998 and 2000.

TCI is expected to be GI's biggest customer.

During a widely covered speech at last month's Western Show, John Malone said that the company expects to purchase several million digital set-tops based on the emerging OpenCable specification that would ensure interoperability.

In a press release issued by TCI just prior to presstime, TCI said it would pur-chase between 65 million and 11.9 mil-lion devices for TCI and certain other HITS affiliates over the next three to five years.

Jim Chiddix, chief technical officer at Time Warner Cable, said his company had committed to purchase 500,000 digital boxes from GI. He also hailed GI's actions as good for the OpenCable initiative.

Cox licenses OSS software

metaSolv Software Inc., a provider of telecommunications software solutions, has signed a software licensing and software services agreement with Cox Communications Inc. to support the Atlanta-based operator's back-office

operations for telecom services. The software will manage the order management, service provisioning, network

design, trouble management, gateway interconnections and work-flow management busi-ness functions for Cox.

"As we deliver on our promise of becoming a 'one-stop' shop of complete telecommuni-cations services, we value MetaSolv's integrated business solutions," said Mark Dickherber, director, national operations for Cox Fibemet. For example, modules will be used to track and configure the hardware that Cox integrates into its fiber optic Sonet networks.

Telewire to distribute V-chip device

Tri-Vision Electronics Inc. has awarded exclusive North American distribution rights to its

"ViewControl" V-chip set-top box decoder line to three leading distribu-tors in the retail and cable TV indus-tries, including Telewire Supply.

Tri-Vision has signed letters of intent for exclusive territories and markets in this region with: Ingram Entertainment,

to exclusively target retail sales to con-sumers in the U.S.; Telewire Supply (a division of Antec Corporation), to exclusively target cable television operators in the U.S.; and Beamscope Canada, which will market to con-

sumers in Canada. Tri-Vision will retain distribution rights to cable television operators in Canada, perhaps under a different brand name which will be announced later.

Ingram is the largest national distrib-utor of home entertainment products, including pre-recorded videocas-settes.

Beamscope is one of Canada's lead-ing sales, marketing and distribution companies.

In addition to these letters, Tri-Vision

has recently signed a joint develop-ment agreement with Samsung

Electronics Co. Ltd. to build the first -V-chip enabled" television set and is in the process of establishing licensing

agreements with Samsung and other TV manufacturers for the incorporation of its V-chip technology into new television sets.

12 CED/JANUARY 1998

11111 1.1"1 WHO SAYS YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL.

Introducing the first 1550 nm transmission system versatile

enough for high-performance

supertrunking and distribution. Harmonic Lightwaves has always been known for creating orod-

ucts that combine versatility with performance. Our innovations

have let network managers stay a step ahead of the competition.

Harmonic's latest addition -the MAXLink- HLT 7709 -fu-ther extends

the applications and affordability of the popular MAXL.nk 1550 nm

transmission system.

The new MAXLink HLT 7709 improves upon Harmonic's current

1550 nm transmission system by increasing the dual complementary

outputs to 9 dBm, witr.out requiring optical amplifiers. This means

new solutions to both old and new system topologies. Who says

you can't have it all?

The high combined output power of the new MAXLink enables

efficient 1550 nm distribution. Tne high signal output allows for

remote location of the optical amplifier. producing high signal quality

in the new fiber-to-the-node transport architectures. In supertrunking

applications the new transmitter increases efficiency and improves

CNR due to elimination of the ooitical amplifier. And no matter how

you look at it, this all means better economy-in eitIer long-distance

or fiber-dense environments.

As television, telecommunicatiols and high-speed telecomputing

converge into one compatible diigital domain, Harmonic will be

there in every headend, hub and node with products that keep

you online. Simpler, faster and better.

Harmonic Lightwaves Transcending the ordinary.

www.harmonic-lightwaves.com

549 Baltic Way. Sunnyvale. California 94089 U.S.A.

tel: 800 788-1330 408 542-2500 fax: 408 542-2511

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HLT 7709 80 Ch. Analog 200 MHz Digital

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T-W of Cincy goes BellSouth deploys Zenith set-tops with mobile radios

In order to improve communica-tions between its dispatch and field personnel, Time Warner of

Cincinnati and SEA Inc. have teamed up to equip the MSO's cable television installation and mainte-nance vehicles with SEA 220 MHz

radios. Time Warner will purchase more than 300 ESP520D mobiles and 30 SEA700 handheld portables. Time Warner's field service

personnel will use the SEA radios on the 220 MHz trunked radio sys-

tem for dispatch communications, operated by Wright Radio of Cincinnati. The radio system will be used by the dispatchers to communicate with field personnel or for field-to-field communications. Wright's 220 MHz trunked radio system is a wide-area radio system. The SEA trunked radio system

allows Time Warner to configure its system into small radio "talk-groups" for efficient communica-

tions among service personnel who routinely communicate within a small defined group of users.

Dispatchers will have the ability to quickly call an individual, a talk

group, or all personnel at once with simple push-to-talk controls, without ever having to dial a number. SEA manufactures and supplies

spectrum efficient 220 MHz radio systems including mobile radios for voice and data transmission, portable radios, and base station radio repeaters. SEA has supplied the radio infrastructure equipment for more than 600 operating

trunked systems.

BellSouth Corporation's recent launch of its americast digital home entertainment service in

New Orleans marks the first full-scale deployment of digital set-top boxes from Zenith Electronics Corporation.

With the Zenith terminals, BellSouth will offer its New Orleans subscribers more than 160 channels of digital video entertainment, with advanced on-screen graphics and near-video-on-demand capability. The feature-rich terminals are based on open industry standards and

are designed to support BellSouth's state-of-the-art digital wireless service.

Zenith has integrated technology from C-Cube Microsystems' DiviCom Inc. subsidiary, for example, to help Zenith create standards-compliant, digi-tal technology for competitive, timely and cost-effective digital systems. The box's flexible design uses interchange-able network interface modules for vari-ous kinds of digital video networks, including wireless and wired cable sys-tems and satellite systems.

Cable TV cumulative HFC upgrade vs. total plant mileage. U.S., 1996 to 2001

1,400,000

1,200,000

1,000,000

800,000

600,000

400,000

200,000

o

Total plant mileage

Cumulative plant mileage upgraded to HFC (miles)

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 200 I

United Video invests in Ka-band group

united Video Satellite Group's DirectCom division has invested in a Colorado-based Ka-band satellite company called KaStar Satellite Communications to provide next-generation satellite services for data and multimedia transmission.

Under terms of the deal, UVSG will initially own a 42 percent interest, with the ability to own up to 49 percent. KaStar has been awarded the Ka-band frequencies at 73 and 109.2 degrees. "This agreement represents a new foray into satellite telecommunications for

UVSG," stated Gary S. Howard, chairman and chief executive officer of United Video. "Ka-band satellite spectrum is capable of many things, induding very robust data

transmission utilizing sophisticated switching on the satellite at tremendous speeds," said Peter C. Boylan III, president and chief operating officer of United Video. "Although Ka-band on-board processing technology is still emerging, it is believed that two-way transmissions, data routing, as well as spot beaming, will be available at price points and speeds attractive to commercial and residential users."

14 CED/JANUARY 1998

FCC COMPLIANCE AS E 1Y AS "1-2-3"

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•Competitively priced and more cost-effective Dollar for Dollar plus a TWO YEAR WARRANTY!

2. ADAPTABLE TO ANY HEADEND "Open Platform" allows compatibility with any headend requirement.

8 channel "IF - switch with the highest isolation and return loss specifications in our industry!

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Crawl "Color" EAS messages on any number of channels.

3. SAGE ENDEC . The most powerful Encoder/Decoder available!

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Control up to 5 tiers of channel groupings (Basic, Expanded Basic, Premium, PPV,

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Will consumers pay for fast Internet service?

Ah recent Yankee Group survey of more than 1,900 U.S. households found that nearly two-thirds of all on-line omes want faster access to the Internet, with over half

specifically interested in cable modem service. That's the good news. But the bad news is that it appears the number of con-sumers who are willing to pay for faster access is much smaller, the study found.

According to the survey, about one-sixth of U.S. households currently have access to the Internet through a proprietary on-line service or dedicated Internet Service Provider. While 66 percent of these on-line homes expressed interest in receiving some type of faster service, only seven percent of current sub-scribers said they were "very interested" in a service providing unlimited access for $40 per month. When asked specifically about cable modems, 52 percent expressed general interest, but just four percent were "very interested" at the $40-per-month price point.

"Clearly, we see a strong overall interest in high-speed data

PISO two-way cable modem Customers. Projected December 31, 1997.

Time Warner Cable

Media0ne

Cox Communications (@)

Rogers Cablesystems (@)

Comcast (@)

Videotron

Shaw Communications (@)

COGECO

Tele-Communications Inc. (@)

Adelphia

Cabioninion Systems (@)

Jones Intercable

Other

Total

29.000

17.000

15.000

I 1.000

10.000

5.800

000

4.500

300

2.400

2,000

1.405

4500

I 11.100; Stratees Ins

services, and cable modems perform well with early adopters," notes Bruce Leichtman, director of the Yankee Group's Media and Entertainment Strategies Group. "But the real challenge for the cable industry will be to make the product available to more homes, and to convince more consumers that it's worth the cost."

"It is also important to remember that the individuals who will subscribe to high-speed data services from cable companies and other providers over the next few years are largely those people who are already subscribing to a service today," adds Leichtman.

S-A Explorer box to support HTML and Java

Scientific-Atlanta Inc. will include support of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) as a standard

feature in its Explorer 2000 digital set-top, with support of JavaScript avail-able for a nominal fee to cover third-party licensing costs.

The announcement supports an industry-wide initiative by Cable Television Laboratories (CableLabs) to forge a consensus on achieving open specifications for advanced two-way cable networks. Recently, CableLabs announced that its OpenCable initia-tive would endorse open Internet spec-ifications, including HTML and JavaScript, instead of specifying any single processor or operating system. Many industry participants recom-

mended HTML and JavaScript appli-cation programming interfaces (API) in their OpenCable submissions to CableLabs. APIs are the software inter-faces required by developers to author interactive applications. HTML and JavaScript complete an

open and robust platform for applica-tions from a variety of content develop-ers. For example, Internet-TV applica-tions such as e-mail, Web-casting and Web-browsing on the television can be supported.

The HTML and JavaScript client engines will be developed and provided by PowerTV Inc. with the PowerTV operating system, all of which will be included in the Explorer 2000 set-top. The new APIs will exist as middleware

layers on top of the operating system. The API enhancements are sched-

uled to be available for Explorer set-tops delivered as early as Spring 1998; older units can be enhanced through software downloads.

Com21 takes cash infusion Com21 which recently announced its

intention to develop MCNS-compliant

modems with Cisco recently received

a $5 million shot in the arm from the

Public Communication Networks Group

of Siemens AG. the German mega-

company

Com21 also recently said it will offer

a modem with a dual-mode return path,

making it useful in either one- or

two-way cable networks

16 CED/JANUARY 1998

MIL

a_

Terayon cable modems overcome noise ... and deliver profits.

Seems like everyone's talking about cable modems and data services. 'Ilred of the noise? We'll help you rise above it and deliver a profitable cable data business.

Get into the data business. Fast.

Terayon's widely praised S-CDMA cable modems have been through rigorous trials with major cable operators. We're shipping in volume, and ready to help you deploy data services - over any cable plant - from all-coax to HFC.

Reduce your costs. Noiselessly.

Our robust S-CDMA cable modems - designed for harsh cable plant conditions - do not require costly plant upgrades. So you can upgrade on your timetable. And with Terayon, you can lower maintenance costs and save a bundle, without sacrificing reliability or - performance.

Deliver revenue. Quietly.

Terayon's high capacity supports the full range of broadband services - from residential web access to telecommuting and dedicated data services for business. Our 14 megabit per second, two-way performance, combined with superior bandwidth management and Quality of Service, supports the data applications of today, with capacity to spare for the opportunities of tomorrow.

Money in the bank. Consistently.

After all the noise, when the dust settles, we deliver what really matters. Lower startup and operational costs. Fast time-to-market. Over any cable plant. Which translates to higher revenue services for you.

Don't just take our word for it. Give us a call today, or visit our web site and check

out Terayon's cable modems for yourself.

www.terayon.com

TERAYON COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

TELEPHONE: 888.7.TERAYON OR 408.727.4400

FAX:408.727.6205 EMAIL: infoeterayon.corn


Interactive TV: Not dead yet!

Think interactive TV is dead? Think again! Wink Commu-nications says interactive televi-

sion sets will be available in the U.S. mar-ket this year. A case in point is Toshiba America Consumer Products Inc., which will be the first manufacturer to offer Wink-equipped televisions.

Toshiba was also the first to introduce Wink TV sets in Japan last year. Today, in addition to Toshiba, Sony, JVC and Matsushita (Panasonic) all have Wink-enhanced television sets in the Japanese market.

"Today's announcement is another example of Toshiba's leadership in advanced technologies," said Maggie Wilderotter, president and CEO of Wink. The Wink technology provides enhanced television viewing through

simple interactivity and more informa-tion on popular shows. By putting Wink directly inside Toshiba televisions, con-sumers do not have to purchase any additional hardware or pay a monthly fee for the enhanced broadcasting because all features are activated by the televi-sion's remote control.

Wink Enhanced Broadcasting includes on-demand plot summaries, trivia quizzes, profiles of athletes and actors, sports scores, news headlines, viewer polls and local weather. In addi-tion, Wink-equipped TV sets allow view-ers to interact with advertisements by enabling them to purchase products, request coupons and receive free product samples and brochures by simply push-ing a button on their remote control.

Wink also recently announced a number of agreements with cable and broadcast networks. "There will be a dozen networks and cable programming services enhancing their current shows by the first quarter of 1998," Wilderotter stated.

GI to intro WorldGate boxes

General Instrument Corp. said it will introduce a new version of its advanced analog set-top terminal that supports WorldGate Communications' Internet TV Service.

Dubbed the CFT2200-I, the new set-top will be priced equally to or slightly higher than current CFT2200 models, said GI officials. In the case of digital, all that is required is a simple software download. The addition of WorldGate Internet access capabilities can enable operators to provide their customers with Web browsing, e-mail and chat applications over a TV.

WorldGate services can be enabled on the CFT2200-I for a configuration cost that mimics today's advanced analog pricing. Alternatively, the CFT2200-I can support all of the applications available on the CFT2200 platform today, while also enabling the WorldGate services for a small cost penalty.

The CFT 2200-1 is designed to provide resolution comparable to the best that can be viewed on a TV set, true color (65,000 colors), and the capability to receive Internet information at data rates (128-300 kbps) from four to 10 times faster than standard telephone modems (28.8 kbps). The digital capabilities of the DCT-1000 allows for significantly higher data rates, 27 Mbps (using 64 QAM modulation), all delivered with crisp MPEG-2 video and Dolby AC-3 digital audio.

Don't sing the return-path blues

Got the return path blues? Scientific-Atlanta is offering a free

service to help qualified cable

operators model the future performance

of the reverse path in hybrid fiber/coax

(HFC) networks.

The key to the service is a proprietary

software simulation program that quickly

determines the optimum configuration

for planned service offerings. S-A devel-

oped the HFC reverse path simulation

software to predict the performance of

the reverse path in various network con-

figurations and traffic loading scenarios.

"Numerous variables are involved in

setting up a reverse path network.

Scientific-Atlanta's HFC reverse path sim-

ulation software is a tool we can use to

help network designers validate their

particular scenarios for reverse path

configurations. services and traffic." said

Dwight Duke. president of Scientific-

Atlanta's Terrestrial Network Systems

sector.

The simulation software can be used

to: predict the bit error performance of

QPSK and QAM modulated digital signals

in the presence of noise and distortion:

model laser transfer and noise parame-

ters; and select signal parameters.

including modulation type, data rate.

frequency assignment. and power level.

18 CED/JANUARY 1998

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10

LE Helping Cox make

emerging technologies

pay off competitively

Alex Best has been having visions. No,

there's nothing wrong with Alex's health.

Quite the contrary. The visions Alex is hav-

ing are good ones, related to the future com-

petitive landscape. Like many of his cable

engineering brethren, they revolve around

his company becoming the primary

provider of video and telecom services. But

unlike the many who have dared to dream

of launching new services only to eventually

fall back to Earth, Best and his crew at Cox

Communications are (hold your breath)

actually doing it.

20 CEO/JANUARY 1998

MAN OF THE YEAR

I'M KIND OF QUIET. I LIKE HUMOR AND I LIKE TO LAUGH,

ALTHOUGH I CAN'T 1ELL YOU HOW MANY PEOPLE WALK

UP TO ME AND ASK, "WHY DON'T YOU SMILE MORE?"

z827

IA SERVICE COMP'f

"It's the ability to offer an integrated combination of services that will deter-mine whether we succeed in the long-run," notes Alex. With Cox aggressively upgrading its systems and kicking off three new lines of business—digital video, digital telephony and high-speed data services—the company is poising itself to win the competitive dash. The secret, according to Alex, is the all-pow-erful cable network. "I don't see any other network out there that can touch what we can do," Alex boasts.

It's because of that can-do attitude and decidedly dear vision of the future that CED proudly names Alex Best, senior vice president of engineering at Cox Communications, as its 1997 Man of the Year.

Starting early With high marks in science and math

while in high school, "It was only logical that I should go to a technical school, which for a Georgia boy meant Georgia Tech," drawls Alex. This "rambling wreck" graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1963 and in short order accepted a job with RCA in the Northeast. RCA was an appealing employer because of its policy of putting new-hires on a several-site rotation that exposes them to numerous different technologies—giving employees a chance to pick the type of electronic

Alex went to RCA

right after graduat-

ing from Georgia

Tech, and hoped to

get an all-around

exposure to tech-

nology. Later, he

would make his

living working in

rural headends and

designing products

for Scientific-

Atlanta in cable's

early days.

work that most appealed to them. Alex spent six weeks in Burlington,

Mass., where RCA designed military equipment, but was soon sent packing to Indianapolis, where the company designed TVs. It turned out to be a long-term assignment, and the only other stop Alex would make on his high-tech rota-tion. Says Alex: "It was somewhat disap-pointing, but quite frankly, the TV industry was fascinating to me."

During those revolutionary early 1960s, companies such as RCA were transitioning from tube technology to solid-state circuitry. Alex was focused on developing a new AGC system that helped make TVs more immune to noise sources such as automobile ignitions and vacuum cleaners.

It was interesting work, but after a couple of years, Indy's cold climate—and perhaps a touch of homesickness—got the better of Alex. "Evidently, my blood was too thin, because there was one Monday morning that I'll never forget. I opened the door to my apartment and the snow was level with the hood of my car. I real-ized this wasn't the right place for a Georgia boy."

So, in 1965, Best took a leave of absence from RCA and returned to Georgia Tech, where a year later he earned his master's degree.

While in grad school, Alex took a part-time job at the Georgia Tech

Engineering Experiment Station, a uni-versity-sponsored company that per-formed basic contract research. While doing work on military receivers, Alex noticed a colleague who was tinkering with a side project. Overcome with curiosity, Alex inquired and was told it related to a tower-mounted television pre-amp that was being designed for a company called Scientific-Atlanta.

"I took an interest in that project," Best recalls. In short order, he was intro-duced to Tom Smith. who was charged with the task of developing products that would take the company beyond anten-nas to include a line of headend products for the then-nascent cable TV business. Given Alex's experience with TV tech-nology, Tom took a shine to him, and after Alex completed his master's work, Smith hired him immediately.

"I'll never forget my first day at S-A," says Alex. "Tom walked in my office, threw down an instruction manual for a Jerrold tube-type headend processor and told me my job was to design one of those—but it had to be solid-state."

Alex, of course, had no idea what the product was—but would soon find out.

Typical day in the life...

These days, most of Alex's time is devoted to meeting with equipment sup-pliers, talking with analysts, fielding calls from the press, attending internal meet-

22 CEO/JANUARY 1998

t •

der.

CED Man of the Year

Alex Best

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was in recognition of the fact) I'm highly motivated and love a challenge."

Hard work has taken Alex far. He's fond of telling the story about the time, years ago, when he had finished wiring a headend and was waiting on the system's owners to come by. "I'm not real good at just sitting around, so I cleaned up the inside of the headend," he says. "And when they still hadn't come by, I found an old rake and decided to clean up the area when they showed up. They were amazed. I remember they called Jay Levergood (of S-A) and told him what I was doing.

The incident taught him yet another valuable life lesson—one that Alex is try-ing to pass on to his children. "You can spend hours and hours doing sophisti-cated stuff, but the fact I was out there raking the yard is what they remember," Alex says. "I try to tell my sons (30-year-old Michael and 27-year-old Bryant) the same thing: Do your job, and then go one step further. Do more than you're supposed to do, because when the time comes that they're looking for people to move up, they're going to pick the one who goes a step farther."

Time to move on That hypothesis certainly worked for

Alex. In the mid-1980s, he had become a

principal engineer, the highest technical position at S-A. By designing innovative products and understanding the needs of the cable operators, he had gained recognition and the respect of his peers.

He also caught the eye of Jim Robbins of Cox, who was looking for a vice presi-dent of engineering. Curious, Alex agreed to meet Jim and talk about the job. "I had gone about as far as I could go at Scientific-Atlanta," says Alex. "The only way to go any higher was to manage one of the divisions, and that didn't look like it was in the cards. This was a chance to do something different."

PHOTOS ON PAGES 21 8, 26 B

Y ROD RE11_1,

He might be

nearing retirement,

but Alex has no

intention of slowing

down. "This is

absolutely the most

exciting time to be

in this industry."

he says.

As it turned out, Robbins was looking for someone with the one thing Alex lacked—operations experience. But Robbins' protracted search kept coming back to Alex. Eventually, however, he agreed to give Best a shot at the job.

More than a little nervous about changing jobs after 20 years at S-A, Alex delicately asked Jim if he could have a job guarantee. "I was giving up a lengthy career to go to a company that admitted I didn't have what they were looking for," Alex says. "(Jim) lcinda laughed and said, 'Hey Alex, even I don't have a job guarantee'."

Alex's reticence was obviously mis-placed. In the 12 years he's been at Cox, he's presided over the company's tech-

nology push into fiber optics, address-ability and repeated bandwidth upgrades in support of new service launches, and succeeded.

That effort continued until about four or five years ago, when Alex's pro-fessional life changed with the advent of new technology and a new business paradigm. "Life is much more compli-cated today than it used to be," he emphasizes. "A few years ago we real-ized we were headed toward an era of competition and (realized) that the company that could most effectively offer a host of services would probably be the winner."

Under Robbins' guidance, Cox real-ized it had to do several things in order to compete and win. First, it had to have size, so Cox acquired Time Mirror and grew past 3 million customers. It also had to dominate the markets in which it operated, so it dustered its franchises in order to control those markets. And finally, it had to be perceived as a cus-tomer-friendly, reliable operation, so the company spent money on customer ser-vice and technical upgrades. The latter effort paid off handsomely when it won the 1996 J.D. Power Award for best cus-tomer service.

But perhaps the biggest upgrade involved the use of fiber optics, says Alex. "The beauty of fiber is that it solves two issues: picture quality and reliability It's almost as if we had rebuilt the net-work to where we put a bunch of head-ends out doser to the customer."

Recognizing the advantage fiber offered, Cox management bought into the concept. Since then, Cox engineers went one step further by introducing the "Ring-in-Ring" architecture. It effectively closes the loops that are started in a tra-ditional fiber "star" architecture, which provides greater network reliability

Today, the company stands ready to embrace other new, emerging technolo-gies. Digital video is rolling out almost as fast as Cox can buy the hardware; tele-phony services are being deployed in selected markets; ATM and PCS are being tested in places like Oklahoma and San Diego. "From a technical perspec-tive, that's been our success," Alex says. "We deploy the latest technology as soon

26 CED/JANUARY 1998

Congratulations, Alex Best, on being named CED 1998 Man of

The Year.

3"»

:3

Congratulations Alex! and the entire

team at

CO COMMUNICATION s

for outstanding leadership and

extraordinary commitment to the

future of the cable television industry.

0 ComniScope

CONGRATULATIONS

ALEX BEST COX COMMUNICATIONS

CED

MAN OF THE YEAR

FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT

F Telecommunications

e l"1-1...."1.1;1e1111111111)%.U 1I.‘

‘-‘..N•

Thank you

Alex

For leading this

dynamic industry

to a brighter

tomorrow.

Your vision

of providing

video,

voice,

and

data

services

has inspired

us all.

From your friends at

PHILIPS

alb PHILIPS Philips Broadband Networks

THE

N id E SAYS IT ''A'

We're proud to join our

industry in congratulating

ALEX BEST on a well-deserved honor.

Satisfaction is always in stock.

TeSIAPIde ANA/VI-EC COMPANY

1-88- .1.6111fire http://telewiresupply.com

Congratulations to the Best of the Best in Cable.

At NextLevel, it's always our honor

to recognize an industry leader

and we can think of no one better

than Alex Best. A man who truly

lives up to his name, we couldn't

agree more with CED in choosing

Alex as "Man of the Year."

Congratulations to cable's best—

Alex Best!

I 1h 11 NEXT

www.nlvl.com

CONGRATULATIONS TO

Al ex Best on being honored as the CED Man of the Year.

You've upgraded the entire industry.

VIACOM.

01998 Viacom is a registered trademark of Viacom International Inc

Cablevision

Systems Corporation

Salutes CED's

Man of the Year

Alex Best

1111111CABLEVISION

Pirelli Cables and Systems North America would like to congratulate Alex Best of Cox Communications as the CEO magazine Man of the Year. This award recognizes his dedication and his outstanding contributions to our industry.

700 Industrial Drive • Lexington, Sc, USA 29072 (803) 951-4800 • FAX (803) 957-4628

Congratulations to

CED's Man of the Year

ALEX BEST

From Your Friends at

TIME WARNER CABLE

conralubionó

gól

CED Man of the Year

Adelphia Your link. For ever

Norte! = Networks

Sometimes,

providing the

finest solutions

in communications

The other half is having a customer

with a vision. We're proud to have

provided Cox Communications their

telephony system. Congratulations,

Alex for being CED's 1998 Man of the

Year. It's an honor for Nortel ta work

with you as you complete the vision.

1-800-4 NORTEL. www.nortel.com

NeRTEL NORTHERN TELECOM

NGIIAlli_AIIIN8 ALEX BEST CED Man of the Year

ratutationi to

Alex Best CED's Man of the Year

BARC

CONGRATULATIONS

CEO 1997 MAN OF THE YEAR

Alex Best

YOUR LEADERSHIP

IS RECOGNIZED BY

YOUR FRIENDS AT

R GERS' Cablesystems

1 Valleybrook Drive, 5th Floor, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 2S7 TEL (416) 447-5500 FAX (416) 391-7258

Congratulations to

Alex Best on the

Man of the Year Award.

We appreciate your contributions to advancing CATV network powering.

€XIDE ELECTRONICS

Strategic Power Management'

LecTrom A PRODUCT OF EX/DE ELECTRONICS CORPORATION

Congratulations,

Alex Best as CED's

Man of Year •

From Your Friends at • Trilithic and

Cable Leakage Technologies

TRILITHIC C LT IMF CABLE LEAKAGE TECHNOLOGIES

CONGRATULATIONS

A LEX BEST, E DIS M AN OF THE YEAR,

FROM ALL OF US AT

Harmonic Lightwaves

conyralulations lo líe ¿es/ man./

Alex Best of

Cox Communications

CED s 0,97 "iZan of

CONGRATULATIONS

Alex Best

CED MAN OF THE YEAR


CISCO SYSTEMS

®

ea-Alex Best

CED MAN OF THE YEAR

a-e Sae&

GLIE EA COMTRONICS INC.

"At once it struck me

what quality went to

form a man of achievement."

-JOHN KEATS, 1795-1821

KEPIS KNE ALEX BEST.

OUR CONGRATULATIONS. MedieDne-[hi. is Broadband. fhj . b, the nay.

Discovery Networks salutes

Alex Best of Cox Communications

for his outstanding leadership, innovation, and vision.

Dà9e9A,iirYL Thql!nel lqierZ tmeel

NETWORKS OF DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS, INC

1997 Man Of The Year

Alex Best ICO

P /A ACOM, INC. ip CABLE CONSTRUCTORS, INC. &JP /

cr. „hi — 1Pr RELTEC

LIKE AVIATION, DIGITAL ALSO HAS ITS PIONEERS.

ALEX BEST YOUR CHOICE TV'S

"MAN OF HE YEAR"

ONCE UPON A TIME,

DIGITAL CABLE SERVICES WERE JUST A TWINKLE IN THE EYE

OF PIONEERS LIKE ALEX BEST.

Your Cheice TM

6400 S. FIDDLER'S GREEN CIRCLE • SUITE 650 • ENGLEWOOD, CO 80111 • 303.566.5700


Congratulations Alex Best

COX COMMUNICATIONS

CED Magazine's 1997 Man of the Year

Your leadership in the

development of cable &

wireless telephony,

high-speed data, fiber optics architecture and

digital video

continues to

contribute to the

future success of

broadband video

networks.

THE rREMIER MA-;!1•ZE BROAIMAND CONING:MCAT:0NR

CED CONIMUNICARION5 ENGINEERING &

CORNING

Congratulates

Alex Best

CED Man of the Year

Count on Corning® Fiber TM

New Modems Make

Their Debut; Interoperability

Demonstrated

Living up to pre-Show promises, interoperable high-speed data modems and the high-bandwidth content that runs on them domi-nated Western Show floor activity, with the best one-stop compatibili-ty area being the CableNET por-

tion of the Anaheim Convention Center. The 28,500 attendees heard about new modems

from ADC Telecommunications (in an OEM arrangement with Phasecom Inc.), Bay Networks Inc., Integrity Communications, Motorola Inc., Philips Broadband Systems, Samsung Electronics America, Terayon Corp. and Toshiba Corp. Under the chassis, silicon suppliers Broadcom Corp.,

WESTERN SHOW WRAP-UP

High-Speed Data

TheWestern Show Rockwell Semiconductor Inc., California Eastern Laboratories, Stanford Telecom and Libit Signal Processing were on hand touting chips that will comply with the cable industry's MCNS (Multimedia Cable Network System) standards.

Plus, NextLevel (which has since changed its name back to General Instrument Corp.) joined Cisco Systems Inc.'s growing list of modem vendors, bringing to six the number of suppliers promising to ride on Cisco's router.

Speaking of routers and termination gear, a new chord of harmony was struck during a press briefing in Anaheim that showed eight data vendors-3Com Corp., Bay Networks Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Harmonic Lightwaves Inc., NEC America, Phasecom

BY CED STAFF

52 CED/JANUARY 1998

CEO/JANUARY 1998 53

WESTER

Inc. and Toshiba Corp.—that were willing to work together on interoperable cable modems. The companies will conduct joint interoperability testing, they said, of cable modem and headend products.

Modems

Some vendors arrived with new

N SHOW WRAP-UP

products already in hand, while others were there promising to be interopera-ble with MCNS devices in the future. ADC showed its "Asymmetrical

Cable Engine" system, which allows cable operators to provide 250 simulta-neous users with 100,000 bits per sec-ond as a minimum. The product is

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squarely aimed at small office/home office (SOHO) users that require high speeds in the downstream direction, and lower speeds upstream.

Motorola, which announced its new, second-generation cable modem late last month, has developed an MCNS upgrade strategy for cable operators who have already deployed the compa-ny's proprietary router. Motorola will be developing a set of four line cards that perform the termination functions and can co-exist in the router along with Motorola's current technology

ADC's ACE

Motorola's CyberSURFR Wave

Operators can either swap out the old cards for new MCNS cards, or sim-ply add the MCNS functionality. A sin-gle Motorola router can support up to nine MCNS card sets and more than 10,000 modems.

Also, during a press briefing, Motorola announced that it has deployed "infrastructure" to support more than 2 million cable modems worldwide, making it the leading com-pany in that product category according to Dick Day, a Motorola corporate vice president.

Bay Networks also announced a migration strategy for MSOs who plan to implement MCNS gear. Bay said its plan allows cable operators to begin or to continue to deploy new data services with existing broadband products, while providing a trade-in for MCNS prod-ucts. Products received as trade-ins will be offered through the Bay Networks Remanufactured Equipment Program.

54 CED/JANUARY 1998

BIG NEWS FOR BIG SYSTEMS

.'•it , II tr-iii 111 111 :

- ' r,,' In

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@ 1997 Trilithic

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Trilithic's modular EASy' system offers you an EAS solution that can be quickly and seamlessly integrated into literally any headend architecture, no matter how complex or sophisticated. With the EASy system you save time and money with bolt-on simplicity and the security and convenience of single source manufactur-

ig <tit(' support. And with EASy, EAS compliance is as easy as mixing and matching the specific capabilities you need:

• IF substitution • Crawls and all-channel messaging • Video substitution • Control of remote hubsites

Don't wait, call Trilithic today for the good news on EAS. Not only will you receive our free videotape on EAS compliance, you'll also receive a free system quote and free EASy product descriptions and specifications. Call 1-800-344-2412. go.

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12

He Can Find Drugs, Explosives, Termites and People... hut this RF leakage thing has got him depressed.

After a 6 year career in law enforcement with the Kinchlow, Alabama Police Department, Duke decided to hang-it-up. He put a lot of bad guys in jail and even found termites at the Mayor's house. Now he just watches the kids play, eats a little too much, and can still keep the postal guy a little off balance from time to time.

His tracking days are over, but the thought of trying to track RF leakage still intrigues him. It takes a special talent to find that stuff.

Cable Leakage Technologies has been in the RF leakage detection business for over 6 years and Wavetrackers have patrolled millions of miles of cable all over the world. Wavetracker boasts positive identification, 2-5 meter accuracy and one step prioritization. And all of that because CLT invented the original Wavetracker...it's that simple.

The Wavetracker won't meet you at the door and you can't scratch behind its ear, but we're working on that.

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The subscriber receives the equivalent of one or two ISDN B-channels without expensive ISDN equipment. The link can be integrated with the company's Crystal Line tekphony system, which provides connections for two phone lines and one data line, enabling sub-scribers to receive phone calls on either phone line without dropping an active data session.

Phasecom Inc. added a telco return model to its line of cable modems, rea-soning that MSOs will need an interim product while outfitting plant for two-way signal flow. Branded "Speed-Demon-Telco," the new Phasecom device uses 64-QAM (quadrature ampli-tude modulation) downstream to serve up to 27 Megabits-per-second (Mbps) of data throughput. The modem can be remotely configured for full two-way operation when available, said Shaul Berger, president and CEO.

Terayon's TeraPro

Terayon Communication Systems announced its new "Universal Cable Modem" would support the MCNS standard, giving users an option of using one of three modes: Terayon's propri-etary S-CDMA modulation protocol, full MCNS compliance, or as a symmet-rical 30 Mbps modem offering flexible quality of service controls.

Terayon officials said the modem, which will be available in late 1998, can be manufactured cost-effectively by inte-grating all three modes on the same chip.

In the interoperability demo area, Toshiba America Information Systems, Panasonic and Harmonic Lightwaves reportedly demonstrated, for the first time, interoperability between two inde-pendently-developed products that are based on different chipsets. The demo, which was done at CableLabs' head-quarters in Colorado, was between Harmonic's Cable Modem Termination System and Toshiba's cable modem.

58 CED/JANUARY 1998

Innovation at all The Right Times

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WESTERN

Both products were developed based on the MCNS data-over-cable specifica-tion, but on different silicon in separate labs. The CableLabs initiative was undertaken to develop a universal stan-dard to which vendors can develop modem and headend products.

Under the hood

Broadcom Corp. has introduced its first controller chips for the MCNS cable modem standard and has deliv-ered cable modem and cable modem termination system reference designs based on the same standard to its strate-gic partners.

The company's single-chip devices implement the entire MCNS MAC pro-tocol required for cable modems and cable modem termination systems. The reference designs allow manufacturers to immediately begin developing and testing devices that use the company's silicon platform. Both support telco

SHOW WRAP-UP

return and two-way RF return and incorporate a real-time operating system for supporting simple bridge functions.

Broadcom also said its complete MCNS chipset is now down to three, after collapsing from seven to one the number of chips needed to handle the MAC (media access control) portion of the standard, said Rich Nelson, director of cable TV marketing for Broadcom.

Rockwell Semiconductor's Digital Infotainment Division also said its first cable modem ICs based on the DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) are ready, and that it is also pursuing a three-chip cable modem set within the next three months, fol-lowed by a headend chipset that will fol-low in the third quarter, said A.C. D'Augustine, vice president and general manager for Rockwell.

Rockwell officials said entry into the cable modem market was made possible by the acquisition of Hi-Media Products

from Comstream Corp. The company already offers a QAM demodulator IC and an Annex B forward error correc-tion IC. Rockwell has developed a pro-totype Media Access Controller that has been tested by CableLabs.

Libit Signal Processing demonstrat-ed an integrated MAC and PHY (phys-ical layer) chip, dubbed "LBT4040," at the Show. Jacob Tanz, vice president of

CEL's RF transceiver

North American sales and marketing for Libit, said the chip, which also houses baseline privacy, "will be a highly inte-

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grated PI-W and MAC reference design that marks our steps toward a single-chip solution."

California Eastern Laboratories' (CEL) Integrated Solutions Group announced the availability of a new, two-way RF transceiver for cable modems. The ISG 2000 is designed to interface directly with 64/256 QAM demodulator/modulator ICs.

Besides providing RF functionality, the ISG 2000 simplifies the interface between the RF and digital sides of a modem design. ISG 2000 transceivers are solid-state, eliminating the hand-wound coils found in other RF modules, and the hand-tuning they require.

Stanford Telecom demonstrated a new, single chip that handles the PHY layer. The chip, called "STEL-2176," couples with the company's headend burst receiver to provide "a complete end-to-end physical layer solution," executives said.

The chip combines upstream QPSK or 16-QAM, and downstream 64- or 256-QAM functions, in addition to on-board analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversions and mode selection between North American "Annex A" or European "Annex B" interpretations of QAM modulation. RAD Data Communications intro-

duced ChipRouter, a wire-speed IP router in a single chip that has been designed for integration into cable modems, satellite terminals, wireless local loop and xDSL access devices. Providing IPv4 and T_Pv6 wire-speed routing at rates up to 40 Mbps, the ChipRouter is a single-chip replacement for traditional integrated and stand-alone routers.

Cisco Systems Inc. announced its cable data product line, with the intro-duction of its uBR 7246 Universal Broadband Router and associated Multimedia Cable Network System

The Beast Lives! Cable Security MDUs

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(MCNS) modem cards. The standards-based uBR 7246 provides cable opera-tors with benefits over existing bridging solutions, say Cisco officials, including increased network security, bandwidth efficiency and centralized management and control. The benefits enable cable operators to offer new services such as high-speed Internet access, streaming video, secure data services and virtual private networks.

Cable operators who plan to trans-port data signals over their networks— for a variety of applications—can now send those signals farther and potential-ly for a lot less money with a new Ethernet product introduced by ADC Telecommunications. Dubbed "Ether-Ring," the new switch enables network operators to dramatically increase the distance data signals are sent while avoiding costly data protocol conversion to frame relay or other formats, accord-ing to company officials. The result? Enhanced network efficiency through reduced overhead and potential savings of between 50 percent and 80 percent over ATM and Sonet-based systems, according to some analysts.

The Fast EtherRing Switch enables transport of data, LP video and EP tele-phony. Because it eliminates the com-plex format conversion between net-works, the product eliminates central switches and distributed routers. Rainbow Advertising has already deployed the unit throughout the New York ad interconnect. The product is now generally available.

Set-tops and related technology As a way to get around the pesky

issue of installing a telephone jack for return communications from digital set-tops, Phonex Corporation has devel-oped a wireless phone jack system to interface with the NextLevel DCT-1000 set-top box that makes pay-per-view phone connections possible from any electrical outlet in the home.

The modem jack transmits data sig-nals on 110-volt electrical wiring using dosed-circuit, FM transmissions. When plugged into any electrical outlet, it pro-vides an instant connection to hundreds of impulse PPV cable channels.

62 CED/JANUARY 1998

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According to company officials, the jack can be set up in less than two min-utes by an installer, helping cable providers avoid hiring additional certi-fied wire installers and the liabilities associated with drilling, pulling wire, and other dangers of telephone wire installation.

Zenith Electronics exhibited a new 750-MHz PM analog set-top and a Dolby-licensed digital box. The new Phase Modulation set-top has been upgraded from 84 channels to 116 and includes an option for audio scrambling, according to company officials. In addi-tion, Zenith announced that Service Electric Cable TV of Allentown, Pa. will begin deploying the set-top by the end of this year.

Power TV displayed its Web brows-er, e-mail client and HTML engine at the Show. The browser is a downloadable application for set-tops that provides access to both Intranet (local) and Internet content using open standard protocols. The e-mail client enables sub-scriber connectivity on an existing televi-sion set. And when integrated with the PowerTV Operating System, the HTML engine provides an open, standards-based client platform for delivering com-pelling services and applications.

And Network Computer Inc., in Scientific-Atlanta Inc.'s booth, unveiled applications like electronic program guides and e-mail, created with HTML and JavaScript, then displayed on a TV linked with S-A's Explorer set-top.

Headend equipment Philips unveiled its new single-chan-

nel digital system for cable headend inter-connects. The system has been designed for applications including cable TV supertrunlçing, regional cable TV net-works, distance education and corporate campus communications.

The uncompressed, digital, single-unit system offers broadcast-quality video, audio and data signal transmis-sion, eliminating signal degradation associated with traditional analog trans-port solutions. Channel capacity is com-pletely scalable, accommodating unlim-ited network expansion.

The system is suited for applications

in which signals in the channel line-up gather at the master headend and are then distributed digitally to various remote headends where they are con-verted to RF and inserted into the AM fiber plant.

Video Data Systems has introduced a modular text-based messaging system that is capable of providing keyed text or billboard displays on up to 96 chan-

Ward Laboratories displayed a new

video noise reduction technology

nels simultaneously. Using the system, displayed text can be unique to each channel, simultaneously displayed on all channels, or displayed on selected groups of channels. Display cards offer monochrome or full color displays from a single line message, logo, or crawl, to a full-page, two-region display with a crawl line.

Also new from Video Data Systems are two digital disk recorders, designed as VTR replacements, which offer the full functionality and capabilities of dig-ital disk technology. The DDRs apply to a variety of applications, including stor-age, non-linear playback, off-line editing and audio post-production.

World Access Inc. has announced the availability of its new CablePLEX multiplexing system, which provides the ability to multiplex voice, video and data within the existing cable architecture, eliminating the extra telephony costs incurred when sending voice and data to and from remote cable sites. The system saves the cable operator the cost of mak-ing long distance calls to remote head-ends, or the cost of sending data updates to customer equipment.

Ward Laboratories displayed a new video noise reduction technology that consists of a number of patented algo-rithms that can be incorporated in set-top boxes, televisions and other con-sumer video products. The company has also developed the Ward CVX 100,

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1997 Eagle Corntronics, Inc

Reader Service

22


Synchronous also unveiled a new digital erbium doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) for digital applications.

Also new from Synchronous is the Spectrum Series Digital Trans-mission System, which provides uncompressed digital transmission in "all of the major world standards," according to compa-ny literature. Key to the performance of Spectrum is its ability to carry any com-bination of baseband, TV-IF and QAM modulated signals.

Scientific-Atlanta also got in on the DWDM game by introducing a plat-form for high-capacity transport of video and two-way interactive digital services over a single fiber. It joins the company's Prisma Digital Transport Sonet/SDH system as another building block toward a total optical networking system.

The new DWDM platform will be an open-standards system to ensure inter-operability with other standards-compli-ant systems. The eight-channel platform will multiplex to eight Prisma Digital Transport systems on the same fiber to increase network operators' per-fiber

Harmonic's PWRBIazer node

transmission to 128 video channels, with an aggregate data transmission rate of nearly 20 gigabits per second.

Harmonic Lightwaves Inc. annou-nced the PWRBlazer Scalable Node, which can be reconfigured and upgrad-ed to meet future network demands, such as delivering Internet access, video-on-demand and other targeted services. Features include: each output port can be addressed by its own fiber pair, which enables the node to scale its output to

provide dedicated bandwidth for deliv-ery of data services to the home; support for redundant optical receivers, return transmitters and power supplies allows operators to configure the node for a high degree of fault tolerance for demanding network applications; and eight optical module slots can accommo-date any combination of plug-in forward receivers and return path transmitters. ADC Telecommunications Inc.

introduced several new products, including an adaptable optical test access unit (OTAU) for remote fiber test systems. The OTAU is a 1XN optical switch that provides easy access to mul-tiple fibers from a single port. Two new transmitter systems for supertrunking and distribution also were shown. The new 1550 nm Homeworx transmission system products indude models for sin-gle and dual fiber supertrunking and single fiber distribution. The supertrunk transmitter provides high performance levels over a dedicated point-to-point or ring architecture, while the distribution transmitter provides high link perfor-mance on a single fiber for superdistrib-ution applications where a large number of optical nodes are serviced directly.

And finally, two power levels of the HWX erbium doped fiber amplifiers are now available. The EDFA amplifiers feature a minimum noise figure and pump lasers that ensure reliability and performance.

Antec Network Technologies intro-duced its LL-470, the newest product in its Inter Link family of interconnectivity management products. The LL-470 has been designed for the interconnection and demarcation of optical fibers

Philips' Diamond Link 1550 nm transport

between two network providers using two individually secured compartments to provide separate access of terminat-ing cables during splicing. The unit sup-

ports up to 36 optical terminations and splices. The cabinet has a NEMA 3 rat-ing to keep the unit safe from severe weather conditions and has been designed for pole or wall mounting.

Philips Broadband Networks show-cased its new Diamond Link 1550 nm broadband transport sytsem, which fea-tures transmitters and optical amplifiers for long-haul trunking alternatives to digital transport applications. The unit also accommodates high-split ratio, wide area distribution architectures.

Transmission/distribution Using the new "RetroPlate" from

Electroline Equipment Inc., cable oper-ators can turn existing passive taps into addressable taps. With a swap of face-plates, the RetroPlate turns popular

Electroline's EAS Control Unit IV

brands of passive taps into addressable devices, allowing cable operators to acti-vate and terminate service on any tap port by typing a few keys on a computer keyboard from any remote location. The RetroPlate is a security solution for hard-to-reach areas, or areas of high theft and churn, and does not require the conversion of the entire plant.

Electroline also introduced a new controller for its EAS family of address-able taps and ClearPath ingress location systems. The new unit can support 1 million subscribers, "hot standby" redundancy, and "in operation" testing, as well as easier troubleshooting and maintenance.

CableSery introduced several drop-in upstream modules specifically designed for older amplifiers. Specifically, CableSery is touting an upgrade for Philips' 450-600 MI-h amplifiers and line extender, as well as NextLevel's Jerrold Starline SJ-450 trunk stations, and Scientific-Atlanta Inc.'s Slimline and 6500/8600 trunk stations. RMS Electronics Inc. introduced its

new line of 1 GHz Plus house drop

68 CED/JANUARY 1998

Zero to 100 MHz in 3 ms! Even the Fastest Transient Ingress Won't Get Past the New Avcrntron AT200OR Spectrum Analyzer

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At less than half the weight of competing products, the AT200OR puts an end to the back breaking chore of lugging heavy Spectrum Analyzers to the site. The AT200OR's built-in battery makes inverters a thing of the past. Compact, yet mighty, this instrument is designed to with-stand tough field use.

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©1997 Avantron Technologies

Reader Service

24


amplifiers for use in network deploy-ments utilizing multimedia devices which require high demands on signal strength. Featuring a double-sided printed circuit board, the house drop amp supports a forward bandwidth of 54 MHz and a passive return bandwidth of 5 to 42 MHz.

Eagle Comtronics Inc. introduced its new line of Eagle Elite Series filters and traps that feature performance to 1 GHz with selectivity for narrow bandwidth

Com21 unveiled a gizmo that

blocks noise in the upstream path

and low adjacent channel insertion loss. The series indudes: single-channel notch filters, multi-channel tier traps and return band noise suppression filters.

Lindsay Electronics introduced a new, low-noise, high performance sub-scriber amplifier which offers 4 dB of cable equalization for in-home design flexibility The new amp has 15 dB of gain with 5-42 MHz passive reverse fil-ters and compensates for 4 dB of cable equivalent. In addition, the product is supplied with a full, two-year warranty.

Antec introduced its Extension Tap, which is designed as an alternative to nine-inch taps. The one-piece product eliminates the need for extension con-nectors, thereby providing better con-nectivity as well as a cost-effective solu-tion to rebuilding networks, says Antec. The tap is compatible with all existing Regal wide-body faceplates and features screwless pin connector seizures. C-COR Electronics announced major

enhancements to its FlexNet family of amplifiers at the Show. The FlexNet 900 Series offers a trunk, terminating bridger and line extender amplifier suited for HFC networks and the addition of digi-tal services.

Increased performance levels are most notable in the return path, test-point accuracy and location, and return loss performance features, says the com-pany. For example, the amps utilize a high performance, push-pull device for reverse amplification. The device has a high compression point, and therefore, a greater tolerance for higher signal levels. Modems, set-tops and other network interface devices can transmit over the reverse path at higher signal levels to allow greater immunity to ingress and noise commonly found in the reverse.

Managing the return path A number of manufacturers were on

hand with solutions to conquer the often troublesome return path. Com21 Inc. unveiled a $15 gizmo that blocks noise in the upstream path. Working with Eagle Comtronics, Com21's new "Ingress Noise Blocker" is installed at the tap and listens for DTMF tones from Com21 modems to signal a switch to high-pass filter mode.

Ontario, Canada-based PCI Technologies Inc. debuted a new, rack-mounted system for splitting out various reverse path signals, then recombining them into one laser transmitter for an optical ride to the headend. PCI also displayed diplex filters and channel deletion filters.

The Holtzman Company demon-strated its "CableClothespin," targeted to test the integrity of in-home coaxial wiring. When the device is placed over the drop wire, a broadband test signal is launched toward the house as a sheath current. The test signal mimics burst noise, which is one of the most trouble-some upstream impairments. Digital sig-nal processing, running on a laptop PC, is used to analyze the returned signal. The system is also capable of measuring the frequency response of the return path from the tap back to the headend, including group delay measurements.

Wavetek Corporation debuted its new PathTrak Performance Monitoring System devoted to monitoring and ana-lyzing multiple return paths. The PathTrak system has been designed to detect minor problems before major outages occur by providing an efficient,

continuous and automated form of test-ing RF performance.

NextLevel Systems Inc. showed its newly-developed Frequency Stacking System (FSS-2000), which increases broadband return capacity. Comprised of four components, the system includes: a four-band upconvertor and a return path transmitter, which are housed in the NL StarGate 2000 optical node; and a block conversion optical receiver and a downconvertor, which are housed in the OmniStar headend platform.

Electroline Equipment Inc. intro-duced its Test Point Selector (TPS), a 16-to-1 intelligent switcher. The TPS can be used in four different manual or automated testing configurations, and speeds testing of up to several hundred optical nodes.

Electroline and Avantron Technologies signed an interoperability agreement at the Western Show making possible the

Alpha Technologies' power supply

use of Avantron AT2000HM Headend Monitor/Sweep Units with the ClearPath ingress detection and location system con-troller and transponders. The agreement aims to integrate Avantron's spectrum analysis capabilities with the ClearPath's ability to remotely test for ingress in the coaxial cable plant.

Powering Alpha Technologies Inc. is adding

the XM Series 2 supply to its line of uninterruptible power products, includ-ing as standard features several items formerly available as options.

70 CED/JANUARY 1998

Product Features

Whether you choose a Synchronous Crawl, Full Screen Override, or Video Interrupt with Audio Override...MIP is at the heart of your compliance.

That's SAM'S WI' 921 TM a Sweetheart of a Deal.

Initial Set-up

Number of internal radios

Total audio inputs

Total digital inputs

Telephone input for local franchise requirements

Front panel microphone input On-board uninterruptible power supply Yes for all functions and protection against voltage spikes and dips

SAMT" MIP-921 TM Front panel inputs from 4 button keyboard or from 286 or newer PC

2

TFT EM 91112 Front panel inputs

from multiple button keyboard only

o 2

SAGE ENDEC Front panel inputs

from 4 button keyboard only

4 6

3 (one front panel mounted) ra cost modem) Yes Yes

via on-board RI-11 jack (through ext No

Pre-Programmable weekly test for unattended operation Weekly & monthly test via Yes telephone for remote operation Separate audio storage for 60 seconds

secondary (tune to) announcement

Control and communicate with Yes

in-home units via on-board narrow' d RF modulator Control downstream override equipment Yes with digital control signals via on-board narrow band RF modulator

Custom control software Yes for most cable override systems

Yes

Yes

Certified under Parts 11, 15 & 68 of FCC Rules FCC ID: GRQ -48,323 MIP-921

Protected under U.S. Patent #5,5

No

No

Yes (through extra cost modem)

120 seconds

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Yes

No

No

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Optional 10 or 40 seconds

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WESTERN SHOW

Among them: Front access to all test points and connections, a standby data display counter that tracks the number of inverter operations and total inverter elapsed time, an automatic self-test mode, and a standby status relay contact for reporting critical system specifica-tions.

New options for the XM Series 2 include dual outputs with a "program-mable breaker" to isolate outputs, and a transfer that reduces audible noise while lowering operating temperature. Also new: an automatic tap switch that increases the AC input operating voltage from 15 percent to 30 percent.

Antec Network Technologies, the manufacturing division of Antec Corp., introduced its modular, network power-ing standby upgrade kit at the Western Show. The newest product of the Energy Link system of products, the kit allows operators to upgrade their 60-volt, non-standby power supplies to standby.

The kit is compatible with most power supplies, regardless of brand. Its compact size allows flexibility and ease of installation within a cabinet or

WRAP-UP

mounted in outside applications. The company also introduced its

Pedestal Amplifier/Node, designed for flexible mounting in outdoor enclosures where space is at a premium. Features include multiple gain stages for high RF output, 870 MI-Iz bandwidth with pro-grammable reverse switching, a modular design that allows for various product configurations, and a simple upgrade from RF amplifier to optical node. C-COR Electronics Inc. introduced

a power supply management agent (PSMA) for cable operators who want to supplement their standby power sup-plies with a reliable management agent. Because of its compact design, the PSMA fits easily into standby enclo-sures.

The agent allows operators to remotely cycle the batteries in a standby power supply and detect problems before they lead to an outage. Because it's an intelligent management agent, it autonomously alerts the company's Cable Network Manager software to any problems without waiting to be polled. Standard product features include broad frequency agility in the

forward and reverse paths and down-loadable firmware.

Network monitoring. management AM Communications Inc. has

released three new monitoring products which support a range of headend and central office products. Developed as a result of industry requirements to extend AM's monitoring capability into headend specific devices, the new prod-ucts are the Telemetry Applications Module (TAM), Serial Applications Module (SAM) and the Binary Applications Module (BAM).

The TAM is a rack-mounted transponder which is modular and con-figurable, and which communicates with AM's OmniMCU controller, either via the two-way RF data stream or via a direct digital interface. It consists of a Communications Control Unit chassis and up to eight SAMs.

The SAM modules are intelligent devices which plug into the TAM CCU rack frame. Each SAM is prepro-grammed to communicate with a specif-ic type of OEM equipment (i.e. receiver, transmitter, etc.). Alarm information is

WESTERN SHOW HIGHLIGHT

Digital is the buzz, but the challenge is deployment

Much of the Western Show buzz was about digital TV and the enormous impact it's having on the cable industry. And the

digital parade will continue to roll, according to "dig-ital pioneer" panelists during the show's "Report

from the Front" session. "Operators must go digital," stated Bill Goodwyn,

senior vice president, affiliate sales and marketing, Discovery Networks. "The biggest dissatisfaction among

consumers is the lack of quality programming all the time, and customers are migrating to DBS because of it." Goodwyn noted several trends which point to digital

as a key component in cable's future growth. They

include: *The number of channels will double very soon •Digital TV will become a reality *Many premium households will convert to digital by

the year 2003 *By the year 2001, 50 million households will have PCs

*There will be more leisure time on-line and for digital

services. He also suggested that the quality of movies-on-

demand will increase substantially, and there will be "not

just more TV, but more convenient ways to access TV pro-

grams." Deploying digital, however, is a daunting challenge,

according to Colleen Abdoulah, assistant to the chief

executive officer for Tele-Communications Inc. (ICI), which is leading the digital deployment charge. "There will be seven million customers with access to digital

through 300 headends and 90 markets by year-end '97,

and launching digital is an operational challenge, espe-cially in marketing, training, technical operations and

engineering." Abdoulah announced that in March 1998, TCI systems

will be adding more capacity and soft launching digital in

a number of markets, focusing on increasing penetration by year-end '98. -Craig Kuhl

72 CEO/JANUARY 1998

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The RDU is a new piece of test equipment. It allows technicians to monitor the return system from any point in the cable system without the traditional and cumbersome HE spectrum analyzer / camera setup.

The RDU allows system installers and technicians to view on any TV screen, the RF Levels, Ingress and Noise present back at the HE from a subscriber's home, system amplifier, feeder tap or fiber node.

The RDU processes the X /Y output data generated by an internal spectrum analyzer and converts it to NTSC video for input to a standard CATV modulator. A data output allows the analyzer screen to be viewed on a computer, same as video. Software is Windows 95 networkable so office possibilites are endless.

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WESTERN SHOW

extracted from the return data by the SAM, signaled back to the TAM CCU and the OmniMCU.

The BAM's purpose is to provide a flexible means to collect, at its input, the various alarms generated by different types of equipment in the event of an abnormal condition, to provide a local visual alarm system, and to provide a means to communicate with a centrally located status monitoring system or alarming system. AM Communications Inc. has

announced a multi-user version of its OmniVU Network Monitoring software that is being tested in several large cable networks around the world. The new

WRAP-UP

release, Version 2.0, is a client-server application based on the Windows NT operating system.

The OmniStat system is an advanced platform that allows network managers to remotely monitor virtually every network element in the transmission path, all the way to the subscriber's home. With the multi-user version, a network enterprise can install monitoring workstations at multiple locations within the enterprise. In a typical installation, an OmniVU workstation could be installed at the net-work's headend, while others might be installed in dispatch offices, engineering offices and network managers' offices.

Tellabs is touting new features for its

WESTERN SHOW HIGHLIGHT

Renewed confidence in cable modems, interactivity

Cable has renewed its confidence in cable modems, and inter-activity will continue to permeate many of the key applica-tions within the cable industry. Those were two of the more

compelling arguments for technology's role as a driving force in the hatching of new businesses centered around cable, discussed during a Western Show session.

"The opportunity to buy pay-per-view from the couch is a valuable next step in mass market interactivity," said Maggie Wilderotter, president and CEO of Wink Communications. "And interactive experiments show that sub-scribers like to play on TV, but there must be pricing and compelling con-

tent. We learned that if you can do a little more with interactivity, niche it simple, and build habits over time, the business will grow."

Marketing, Wilderotter added, will be the tie-breaker for operators as they expand their services, including digital and interactivity. "There is a huge amount of delivery into homes, and marketing has become cruciaL

Customers will want choice, and the deliverer must be all things to all peo-

ple. How operators set that up is critical." Robert Pittman, president and CEO of AOL Networks Inc., agreed.

"Interactive services like AOL do well because customers are on already.

As the world gets more complicated, however, marketing becomes more important. We want to take things important to people and make them

more convenient. That is the metric to this. It must be easier." And cable, Pittman said, literally has the inside track. "Cable already has

(a) pipe into homes. If you look at the economics, that's pretty compelling." In addition, Brian Roberts, president of Comcast Corporation, cited PPV

as having more volume than L.L. Bean and Bloomingdales combined, and has upped cable's confidence in both interactive services and cable modems. "Cable has renewed confidence in cable modems," Roberts said. -Craig Kuhl

family of Element Management System products, which support the company's CableSpan telephony-over-cable system.

The CableSpan EMS Feature Package 2.0, new at the Show, provides greater automation and a graphical user interface. It also offers "auto discover" of plug-ins, configurations and cross-connects that can be tailored by network opera-tors. It will be available in the second quarter of 1998.

The Broadband Communications Division of ADC Telecommunications has introduced its OsWorx Commander, a new element management system for broadband networks. The system has been designed to provide centralized, integrated monitoring, performance reporting, and fault analysis of multi-ser-vice, multi-vendor network components, managing all the data and video prod-ucts from a single intelligent support sys-tem and interface.

The system monitors and reports both service interrupting and system degrading events for up to 512 network elements, analyzing notifications from network elements on a proactive, inter-active basis. It operates on an industrial-ized rack-mount unit based on a SUN SPARCstation platform running the SOLARIS 2.5 operating system. In addi-tion, the system is designed around an object-oriented database.

Siecor Corp. has announced the availability of its demonstration disk for the OptiCon Network Manager Release II software. The disk highlights the key features of the company's ONM soft-ware, which provides a way to maintain and track all fiber optic components in cable TV headends, telco central offices or in premises applications, regardless of the manufacturer.

NextLevel Systems Inc. demonstrat-ed its newly-released NETsentry HFC Network Management System. The sys-tem handles remote management of all elements of an HFC telecommunica-tions network, including analog, digital and satellite headends, as well as outside plant equipment.

NETsentry uses standard industry hardware and software products, as well as protocols such as NT, Unix, Oracle and SNMP, which enables a high degree

74 CED/JANUARY 1998

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WESTERN SHOW

of cross-vendor integration. C-COR Electronics has announced

CNM System 2, a new generation of its Cable Network Management Platform, with capabilities operators need to manage advanced two-way networks. The system incorporates new paradigms; for example, support for open standards, expert system fea-tures and simple network management protocol (SNMP).

Test equipment Tektronix Inc. showcased a broad

line of test equipment for digital cable television, and demonstrated a picture-quality analysis system. On deck for digital testing is a field tool with a strong RF measurement set for return path troubleshooting; a high perfor-mance, metallic time domain reflec-tometer for cable television and broad-band applications; and a technology demonstration of a new capability for making in-service performance mea-surements on digitally modulated 64-QAM video channels.

Sencore used the show as a forum to introduce a new line of signal level meters for 64-QAM signal analysis. The new meters are designed to be rugged, handheld, weatherproof units which make measurements on QAM modulat-ed signals anywhere in the system. The meters tune by channel or frequency any 64-QAM or analog signal, from 50 to 860 MHz. They also provide full signal power measurements from -24 to +34 dBmV for taking power level readings throughout the system.

Avantron Technologies has enhanced its AT200OR Spectrum Analyzer to include measuring in-chan-nel frequency response, carrier-to-noise, composite second order and depth of modulation, without taking the channel out-of-service. According to Avantron, the unit has a scan speed of 3 millisec-onds for a 100 MHz span.

And Wavetek Corp. has introduced a new upgrade to its Stealth products. Stealth firmware (version 9.1) provides several new capabilities, including improved reverse sweep and spectrum display speed, self-calibration and new features for reverse noise and ingress

WRAP -UP

troubleshooting. With the upgrade, Stealth units can now self-calibrate, allowing reverse sweep without adapters. The upgrade has also improved the Stealth spectrum display speed; 5 MHz span displays now update in less than a second.

To provide more information about the reverse path, the headend "noise" mode has been improved. Users can now view the entire headend reverse path spectrum, both at the headend and in the field. This allows field technicians to quickly switch between a view of the local reverse spectrum and the headend spectrum to find noise and ingress prob-lems in the field. By comparing the local spectrum with the headend spectrum, a tech can see if a noise source is "upstream" or "downstream" from his current position.

RSVP

Return path tester from Trilithic

Hukk Engineering has enhanced its CR1200 QAM monitor. In addition to Pre- and PostFEC bit error counts, con-stellation display, errored and severely errored second counts, spectrum display and signal-to-noise measurements of 64 QAM modulated signals, the CR1200 will now provide those same tests on 256 QAM signals.

New from Trilithic Inc. is its Guardian RSVP, a return path testing instrument designed for cable TV installers. The unit works in conjunction with the company's 9580 SST Sweep and Ingress Analyzer, mounted in the headend.

ieeeter

Trilithic's reverse leakage detector

At the push of a button, the RSVP verifies that the level needed to commu-nicate with the headend is within the range of the set-top terminal, then auto-matically measures the carrier/(ingress and noise) ratio of the entire return path, from set-top to headend. The RSVP scores the results as "pass" or "fail," and displays the measurement data.

The Guardian IsoMeter is used with the Guardian RSVP to test the shield-ing effectiveness of in-home cabling. The RSVP injects a tone-modulated test signal into the subscriber's house cabling, and the installer uses the IsoMeter to track down leakage of the test signal due to broken shields, loose connectors or other sites that would admit ingress. The IsoMeter emits an audio tone that varies with leak ampli-tude, making it easy to track down any shielding problem.

ComSonics Inc. has introduced a new test equipment system called CyberTek, which will indude signal level meters, a headend monitor and an upstream maintenance system. The lead product in the system, CyberTek Vision, is designed for field use, fea-tures hands free operation and is voice-responsive. The product is equipped with a 5-1000 MHz frequency range, reads all HFC signals, reads CNR and hum non-intrusively and offers all basic measurements. 1111

76 CED/JANUARY 1998

Catch a "Rising Star" in CED Magazine's March issue

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CED COMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERING t DESIGN

FiberLine , B E OPTIC TECHNOLOGY

Finding the right splice closure Matching specs and craft-friendliness to the application

By Jerry Patton and George Steenton, Keptel

Fiber optic splice closures don't have a lot of sex appeal, but choosing the right type for your

network can be a critical decision when it comes to keeping your plant running as efficiently as possible. A fiber's journey from the headend

to the hub or node housing is rigorous. It goes from the climate-controlled, fire-protected headend to being trenched underground or stranded from pole to pole, where it can be exposed to inclement weather conditions, tree limbs, chemicals, car accidents, back-hoes, rodents, bullets and a variety of other dangers.

After the fiber cable sheath is broken and the fiber is spliced, each fiber may pass through as many as 25 fiber optic splice closures. Unlike the headend, clo-sures do not have the space for climate

control and fire systems, and typically are not locked up tight. However, clo-sures are often expected to house and protect as many fibers as a typical head-end, thereby making the splice closure the most critical link in the fiber plant.

The growth of closures The SCTE (Society of Cable Telecom-

munications Engineers) has not yet devel-oped universal requirements for splice closures. However, through the years, the cable TV industry has learned much from the experiences of the telcos. Before fiber, internal standards for twisted pair required telco operators to use encapsu-lated closures at splice points. Initially, these standards were also applied to fiber, however, they soon proved ineffective for fiber applications. The downfall of encapsulated closures contributed to

the birth of pressurized closures. During the onset of competition, the

pressurized closures were viewed as a place to reduce costs. Soon the telcos began to employ sealed closures without encapsulants or pressurization. The advent of this technology led to Bellcore's TR-771 specification, one universal requirement for all splice clo-sures, which has been adopted by the cable TV industry. In 1993, aerial clo-sures (weathertight breathable) were introduced as another cost-effective alternative, enabling telcos to save 30 to 50 percent in parts and labor. Today, aerial closures comprise approximately 10 percent of the closures that are deployed annually in the telco industry.

Environmental requirements The variety of closures that are avail-

able today can be attributed to the surge in fiber applications. In 1994, 13d1core modified its universal TR-771 specifica-tion to test closures in accordance to environmental requirements of specific applications. For example, the new GR-771 specification groups closures into six deployment families: buried, under-ground, pedestal, outdoor wall, aerial pole and strand and indoor wall. This specification is a useful tool to deter-mine if a closure is suitable for a target-ed application. While some closures fit into only one "deployment family," oth-ers may cross a few lines. Therefore, users should consult with closure manu-facturers on their unique needs.

Following is a cursory review of four environmental categories: aerial, pedestal, combined buried and under-

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ground, and universal. The following recommendations address both typical and unique needs and highlight areas where Bellcore specifications should be exceeded. For more detailed informa-tion on environmental requirements and the tests for certification, reference Bellcore GR-771.

Aerial. This group includes weath-er-tight, free-breathing closures that are required to pass a wind-driven rain test. Their tongue-and-groove design allows these closures to maintain weather tightness. Typically, breathable open-ings can be found on the bottom of the closure. A metal screen that is sonically welded to the plastic to prevent infesta-tion by insects should cover these openings. Bellcore requires a 90-day salt fog test to identify corrosion prob-lems. Bellcore also specifies a condi-tional bullet resistance test, if the unique need exists. This test requires a 12-gauge shotgun to fire from a 50-foot distance using 71/2 shot.

Pedestal. This group includes any closure that will be placed above grade in a pedestal type enclosure. Pedestal closures are designed to meet specifica-tions lower than those for underground. A 10-foot water immersion resistance specification is necessary, because these

Splice closures should be designed to keep the plant operating for at

least 20 years

closures are placed at ground level, and the pedestal will not always be flood-proof. Bellcore GR-771 allows pedestal-type closures to be free breathing or sealed. Therefore, a GR-771 pedestal rating may not suffice in a flood plain. Because these closures are protected by a pedestal, the specifications for impact, compression and corrosion resistance can be lower. Bellcore does not require

OPTIC TECHNOLOGY

freeze/thaw tests for pedestal closures. Buried/underground. This group

includes any closure that will be placed below ground, such as a direct bury or in a manhole/handhole. These closures must meet a 20-foot water immersion resistance specification. Also, steam resistance should be required for man-hole applications. Bellcore considers steam resistance a conditional require-ment for its buried deployment family. Buried/underground closures feature greater impact, compression, corrosion, and chemical resistance specifications than other outdoor closures, thereby making them better suited for harsh environments. However, Bellcore does not require fire, UV, bullet or rodent resistance for this group, mainly because these closures will not be exposed to those dangers in their speci-fied environments.

Universal. This group includes clo-sures that meet all specifications for all six of Bellcore's deployment families. A truly universal closure will meet all of the rigorous requirements for buried/under-ground closures. Universal closures will also pass the UV test, allowing them to be used in aerial applications, as well as Bellcore's conditional fire, steam, rodent and bullet resistance tests, which ensure that they also address unique require-ments. The main advantage of specifying

a universal closure is that it is likely to meet the technical requirements of an application, thereby reducing the risk of a closure failure.

Expect more from your closure Splice closures are designed to do a

lot more than simply meet applica-tion/environmental requirements. For example, they should also be designed to keep the plant operating for at least 20 years by allowing re-entry, re-config-urations and a high level of craft-friend-liness. To get the full benefit, there are several factors to consider when select-ing and comparing closures.

•Closure technical specifications. All closures, regardless of technical features or price, must meet minimum specifica-tions for the application. Bellcore GR-771 has six different deployment fami-lies; therefore, it's important to ask man-ufacturers which deployment family or families its closures fall into. Generic testing categories include: fiber routing; cable damping and sheath retention; compression resistance; impact resis-tance; water immersion; wind-driven rain; thermal aging; temperature/humid-ity cycling; freeze/thaw; chemical immer-sion; bonding; corrosion resistance; and resistance to bullets, rodents, steam and/or fire. These specifications offer some insurance that the closure will per-form as promised.

•Purchasing the closure. Look for clo-sures that are easy to order, require few ancillary parts and are packaged in one box for most applications, with one part number (i.e., three cable kits, two trays and hardware for sealing, gripping and grounding). Sound purchasing decisions can dramatically reduce inventory hassles and ensure that everything is intact when the technician arrives at the job site.

Most manufacturers divide their line of closures into a few tiers to fit different fiber counts, such as <18, <36, <96, <216 and >216-E Once the tiers set has been identified, it's important to deter-mine how the closure in each tier must be configured for typical applications. For example, the base closure for tier

80 CED/JANUARY 1998

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Environmental requirements to consider for closures*

'"eleeerCVidereund -"'Wdestal

Water resistance Yes (20 ft.) Yes (10 ft.) Yes (Wind-driven rain) I

Sheath retention Yes (100 lb. axial) Yes (100 lb. axial) Yes (100 lb. axial)

Vertical drop Yes Yes Yes

Compression Yes (300 lb.) Yes (100 lb.) Yes (100 lb.)

Impact Yes (100 ft.-16s.) Yes (50 ft -lbs.) Yes (50 ft -lbs )

Thermal aging Yes Yes Yes

Temp./humidity cycling Yes Yes Yes

Freeze/thaw Yes

Chemical resistance Yes Yes Yes

UV resistance Yes

Corrosion resistance Yes Yes Yes

Bullet resistance Yes

Rodent resistance

Steam resistance

Fire resistance

This table presents generic guidelines, not necessarily those of Bellcore. For detailed explanations of standard Bellcore requirements, please acquire a copy of Bellcore GR-77 I. el' These requirements are more application-specific and/or conditional, thus dependent upon unique needs.

<96-F may be configured with enough cable kits and trays to handle three cables and 48 splices. After choosing a few basic configurations to fit most of the applications, the closures can be compared according to the base cost, as well as other expenses, including: parts and tools; additional cable and splice trays; re-entering; grounding; maximum fiber and cable capacities; and labor. This procedure requires a minimal amount of time and is the only method that proves the real cost of owning a clo-sure.

eInstallation. Closures should be easy to install. Therefore, find out if power sources are required, and what special tools are needed. Also, does the installation require additional tapes and cements that are not included with the closure? Does the installation of small or large cables require special kits? Simple installation reduces labor costs and elim-inates the cost of special tools.

•Midsheath installation. As new ser-vices and customers arrive in cabled areas, splice enclosures will be installed onto fiber optic cables that contain

active fibers that cannot be cut. Before standardizing on a closure, find one that allows easy midsheath access and also handles everyday splicing needs. Midsheath installations can be compli-cated when a fiber cable must be dou-bled over and pushed through a port hole, or if there's not enough storage for uncut expressed fibers.

*Re-entry. In today's changing net-work, it is likely that technicians will have to return to the closure to re-direct

Pedestal closure

signal distribution, re-splice or add con-nectors or a cable. Therefore, the clo-sures should be easy to get back into. Re-entries are often unplanned and on short notice, so it's best if the dosure will not require a re-sealing kit, a power source or special tools for re-entry.

*Adding a cable. Factors to consider include disturbance of the cable grip and ground, as well as the seal integrity of the other cables. Also, make sure that previously installed cables are not being endangered with flames, heat or hack-saw blades. During the initial installa-tion, be sure that any port adapters for future cable entries do not limit the clo-sure to smaller cable ports. Also, try to find a closure that does not require a costly and cumbersome midsection to be added for cable entries beyond the fourth cable.

*Other considerations. Determine if the closure is fire rated, thereby allowing it to be used in a building. Local code will determine which of the four levels of Bellcore GR-771 fire rat-ings need to be met. Also, the weight of the closure will determine clearance or load problems on the strand. Additionally, Bellcore requires sealed closures to feature an air valve to test the integrity of the closure seal. An internal pressurization of 8.5 p.s.i. is a good approximation of an external 20-foot waterhead. Also, use 4.25 p.s.i. for a 10-foot waterhead.

In today's competitive telecommuni-cations industry, your fiber plant is your channel to market. It is necessary to do your homework before choosing your fiber optic splice closures. By taking the time to match the dosure's technical specifications and craft friendliness to its application, everyone will benefit, from your technician, to your subscriber, to your bottom line.

About the authors Jerry Patton is a product specialist,

and George Steenton is director of prod-uct management for Keptel, an Antec company.

82 CED/JANUARY 1998

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Business applications over cable networks Evaluating technologies for business broadband access

By Jian Zhang and Tim Hall, Terayon Communication Systems

The Internet is not only changing the way we communicate in our daily life, but it is also fundamen-

tally changing the way we conduct busi-ness. Information exchange today extends well beyond communication within a building or business campus, and the applications go well beyond e-mail and corporate Intranet. Rather, we swap engineering designs with remote offices, share inventory databases

with suppliers, get proofs from our ven-dors, let employees work at home, take orders and ship products to customers— all over a private network or the Internet. These new business practices create a tremendous demand for high bandwidth access to the networks. A new dass of bandwidth-intensive applications, such as videoconferencing, heightens demand even further, as these become the main-stream business practices.

•••• Modem

HE Headend

ri• Internet access

ÁT,.e.. Virtual private network access

Private network access

Figure I:Three types of access supported by the cable infrastructure: the Internet,

private network and virtual private network—all of which connect end users to the respective networks through their headends.The virtual private network is repre-sented by a private network and secured "tunnels" within the public Internet.

How does modern networking and access technology meet these demands? At the low end, today's telephony-based remote access is inexpensive, but too slow. At the high end, dedicated leased lines offer fast digital access, but at a cost that is prohibitive for small- and mid-sized businesses—a group that consti-tutes 60 percent of the business market.

The proximity of their cable infra-structures puts cable operators in an excellent position to deliver high-speed access to small- and mid-sized businesses. By leveraging their cable assets and the economics of the coaxial cable network, cable operators are poised to be formida-ble players in the local access market.

Market opportunity Traditionally, local telephone opera-

tors have monopolized the local telecom-munications market—today, a market approaching $100 billion. However, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 changed all that, and opened the market to competitors, including competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) and long distance carriers.

Dedicated data access, which pro-vides business users with a constant, full-time connection to the Internet, is a small, yet fast-growing, segment of the local telephony market. Driven by the explosive growth of the Internet and pri-vate networks, dedicated access has been growing at a rate of more than 20 percent per year—today at nearly $10 billion. CLECs have been effective in capturing a segment of this market from the telcos.

Cable operators are in a unique posi-

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tion to offer a suite of economic broad-band access solutions for small and mid-size businesses. While CLECs target large businesses in major cities, cable net-works cover primarily residential areas, where small- and mid-size businesses are located. Their all-coax and hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) architectures are likely to offer better economies than all-fiber networks, when deployed in these resi-dential areas. All of these factors provide cable operators unmatched competitive advantages in the business market.

Cable-based access networks Cable operators can target two dis-

tinct access opportunities: Internet access and private/virtual private net-work (VPN) access (see Figure 2). In Internet access, the cable network is used to connect businesses to the Internet through the headend. The head-end acts as a traffic concentrator for a point of presence (POP) on the Internet. The businesses' internal network is con-nected to the cable network through a cable modem via a hub or a router.

As an access to a private or virtual pri-vate network, the cable network connects vendors, business partners, customers, branch offices and employees' homes to a corporate network. Users are connected to the headend via the cable network, which connects to a private backbone with a dedicated leased line, in the case of a private network, or with secured "tun-nels" through the Internet, in the case of a virtual private network. Such tunnels, implemented by network layer encryp-tion of Internet Protocol (IP) data, allow transmission of mission-critical data across the Internet without compromis-ing its security Virtual private networks have the advantage of lower cost and higher flexibility over private networks, because VPNs don't require leased lines.

Business applications over cable In general, business applications over

cable are differentiated from residential applications by: (1) providing productiv-ity enhancements as opposed to the entertainment focus of residential appli-cations, (2) running over a wide area net-work (WAN), and (3) requiring high

bandwidth, two-way connection. Figure 2 provides a framework for describing business applications over the cable access network. The underlying tech-nologies supporting these applications include the cable modem, the coaxial cable network, virtual private network, and voice-over-IP.

Three categories of horizontal busi-ness applications can best be supported by a cable access network: collaborative applications, real-time broadband appli-cations and commerce-related applica-

Collaborative applications include groupware, workflow

and whiteboard applications

tions. Collaborative applications indude groupware, workflow and whiteboard applications, which allow multiple users in disparate locations to share the same information concurrently. The informa-tion exchanged in these collaborative applications includes documents, images, business forms, chained discus-sions or video and audio streaming. The real-time applications include videocon-ferencing and IP telephony. Commerce-related applications include Web site hosting for advertising or electronic commerce and financial transactions such as point-of-sale, inventory control and credit verification.

Multiple vertical business applica-tions can be supported by cable access. Figure 2 includes a list of eight vertical applications, induding K-12 education, college campus access, telemedicine, real estate, work-at-home/telecommuting, rete and community and government access. All of these share a common characteristic: they are accessible to cable networks.

Design requirements Because business applications provide

productivity enhancements, there are spe-

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available for other applications. Such symmetric applications demand a cable modem access system which supports true, two-way interactivity.

Quality of service. In addition to the general requirements for reliability securi-ty and bandwidth symmetry, a cable access system must support business applications that require various levels of quality of service (QoS). QoS can be offered in three dimensions: bandwidth, latency and latency variation. Latency refers to the time delay in transporting information from its source to its destina-tion, whereas latency variation denotes the variation in such time delays. It is essential to minimize latency variation in delivering real-time applications, because the relative timing among information components must be preserved to ensure data integrity Video streaming applica-tions, for example, require the relative timing between two video frames to be constant in order to deliver high-quality video. Interactive applications also. demand minimal latency as a result of their two-way interactivity. In telephony, for example, round-trip channel latency of more than 25 milliseconds produces echoes [3]. Applications vary significantly in their bandwidth demands. Some appli-cations require constant bit rate (CBR), while others demand variable bit rate (VBR) or unspecified bit rate (UBR).

Figure 4 shows bandwidth and latency requirements for various business applications. As shown, a cable access system must provide the flexibility to offer bandwidth ranging from 8 kbps to 15 Mbps, and latency as low as 25 milliseconds, in order to deliver high-quality business applications.

In addition to service quality considerations, the flexibility to offer various classes of QoS is important for competitive consid-erations. Some access products offered by local telephone com-panies carry with them specific QoS characteristics. For instance,

Reliability

Telemedicine

Retail

Work at home

'Videoconferencing

Voice over IP

Real estate

Education

Web hosting

ccess

Security Baavlatil 1 symmetry

Quality of service

High Low latency • Isochronicity bandwidth 1

Table I: Business application requirements

T-1 or fractional T-1 leased lines support constant bit rate at various bandwidth levels. In order to offer competitive products, cable operators should have the flexibility to set specific QoS para-meters to match the offerings of local telephone service providers.

Lastly, the capability to provision the bandwidth to support multiple levels of service is also essential to ensure cable operators a solid financial return. Such capability enables the operators to offer multiple services to better meet the needs of various business applications, and thus price the services effectively.

Tolerance to

delay

High

Low I K

Such bandwidth provisioning capability improves the operator's profit margins and results in better financial returns.

In order for a cable modem to deliver QoS control, it must incorporate a flexi-ble and efficient media access control (MAC) layer design. With their ability to allocate spread spectrum codes dynami-cally, S-CDMA-based cable modems pro-vide a flexible and efficient MAC layer. S-CDMA-based cable modems guarantee subscribers low-latency, constant-bit-rate service by dedicating a group of codes to the subscriber. Alternatively, an unspeci-fied-bit-rate service can be implemented

by allocating a pool of commonly-shared codes for multi-

Non-iriteractiv

Interi

Telephony (<25 ms)

Videoconferenc

I OK 100K I M 10M

Bandwidth requirements (bits/sec.)

100M

Figure 4: Bandwidth and latency requirements for various broadband services. (All numbers are after data compression.)

ple subscribers. CBR, UBR, and other classes of services can coexist simultaneously in the same channel of an S-CDMA modem system.

The most important requirements in designing a cable access network for business include: reliability, security, symmetric band-width capability and the capability to offer various QoS levels of service. By building systems to address these network considera-tions, cable operators can ensure that they will be com-petitive in entering the local dedicated access market. •

90 CEO/JANUARY 1998

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Networkin g ADVANCED NETWORKING TECHNOLOGY

Which way to the data bonanza? Operators faced with technology, marketing choices

BY FRED DAWSON

he cable industry exits '97 with an impressive head of steam and a tremendous burden of proof

looming for '98 when it comes to capi-talizing on the promise of high-speed data services.

Much was made at the recent Western Show of demonstrations showing interop-erability among modems compliant with

the emerging Multimedia Cable Network System (MCNS) standard, and even more was made of the vast improvements in the look and feel of high-speed data services recently enhanced to take advantage of the graphics, audio and video potential of broadband access. But a doser look at the state of affairs suggests MSOs must com-mit to a much more aggressive push on

ILLUSTRATION BY GARRY NICHOLS. SIS

the data front in the year ahead than they appear to have planned so far, if they are to establish cable access as an off-the-shelf option in network computing.

The Western Show came and went without anyone announcing orders for MCNS modems for good reason, notes Richard Green, CEO of Cable Television Laboratories Inc. "It's a little early for big orders for MCNS modems, because there are questions surrounding interoperabili-ty that we still have to work through," he says. It took CableLabs technicians six weeks to get the data systems on display at CableNET to work together, Green adds.

"The (MCNS) process is well defined," he says, "The next goal is to make sure it works."

If the issue of when MCNS modems will enter the mainstream of MSO deployments and, from there, find their way into retail distribution were pegged strictly to the final resolution of the inter-operability challenge, there would be lit-tle cause for concern, because it's likely that these technical details will soon be worked out. But the real question con-cerns what happens once everyone can be sure the modems they're buying will work with everyone else's modems.

"That's hard to call," Green says. "There are several forces at work which will help push MCNS modems into the mainstream and eventually to retail dis-tribution. Probably the most significant is the OpenCable (next-generation set-top standardization) process, because those boxes will all come with MCNS modems built in."

However, while orders for OpenCable set-tops could soon materialize in quanti-ties as high as 25 million—a figure cited by Tele-Communications Inc. CEO John Malone as an outside possibility at the Western Show—dependence on Open.

92 CED/JANUARY 1998

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Cable as the driving force would not pro-duce the expeditious drive to rete that MSOs and MCNS modem vendors are looking for. Malone, talking with reporters at the Western Show, made dear ICI doesn't expect to move to "sig-nificant" deployments of OpenCable set-tops until "late '99."

And even this timeframe for massive quantities of MCNS-equipped set-tops depends, in TCI's case, on the completion of at least one of the major deals it was working on at press time to ensure subsi-dization of the set-top purchases by a big software company such as Microsoft Corp., or a long distance company such as AT&T. "It's as though we're building a big building," Malone said. "Like the building owner, we need that first big ten-ant to give us some assurance that we'll succeed in getting the required occupan-cy once we've completed construction."

Clearly, it's going to take something more than OpenCable to drive MCNS modems into the marketplace if the goal is to achieve retail distribution starting in late '98, as some MSOs and their suppli-ers have indicated, or even in '99, as virtu-ally everyone expects. But a look at the current state of high-speed data service deployments and the pace of rollouts anticipated for '98 suggests industry plans may be inadequate to the task at hand.

At first glance, the numbers are impressive. Based on MSO reports of service launches so far, there appear to be about 5.4 million North American households passed by networks equipped to deliver data at anywhere from 10 to 40 megabits per second over 6 MHz cable channels on a shared access basis. That's from a standing start of close to zero a little over a year ago.

Every one of the top 10 MSOs, some of the smaller ones in the U.S., and all of the major Canadian MSOs are now in the high-speed data business. Services, typi-cally priced around $40 per month, are available in about 72 franchise areas, rang-ing from small townships such as Ridgecrest, Calif., where Mediacom pass-es 17,500 homes, to major dusters, such as Tim c Warner's 330,000-home

Northeast Ohio and MediaOne's 400,000-home Jacksonville operations.

Yet, for all that has been accom-plished, the jury is still out as to just what the high-speed data business is going to mean to the bottom line in cable. Overall, judging from subscriber numbers reported by the major suppli-ers and extrapolating from there to the rest of the market, there appear to be about 100,000 subscribers actually signed on to services at this point, repre-senting just under two percent of total

'A year-and-a-half ago, it took 46 steps to do the software installation'

passings. In systems that have been mar-keted for a year or better, which offer a fairer gauge of penetration, numbers are typically running at three to six percent, with a few operations, such as Rogers Cablesystems' year-and-a-half-old Wave service in Newmarket near Toronto, pushing dose to eight percent.

Few are satisfied with these numbers as reasonable targets for the long haul. "1998 is the pivotal year in terms of moving up on all the curves," says Dean Gilbert, senior vice president and gen-eral manager of @Home Network, reflecting a widely held view of what the immediate challenges are.

Where @Home is registering in the three-to-six percent penetration bracket

among the handful of systems that have been up and running a year or so, the goal now is to get to 15 percent, Gilbert says. But it remains to be seen how fast the subscriber base can be expanded, even with the stepped-up marketing efforts and higher-level content induce-ments @Home and the other service providers have slated for '98.

@Home, daiming close to 50,000 subscribers out of 2.6 million homes passed, is anticipating that the total sub-scriber base for cable data services offered by all suppliers a year from now will only be about 500,000. This is 200,000 fewer than projections made ear-lier this year by Paul Kagan Associates.

Such caution rests on several realities of the business that have become appar-ent as cable operators push forward with the marketing of services, starting with the fact that the state of the technology is such that installing cable modems remains a costly, time-consuming task. By most accounts, it's still taking an average of two hours per customer to get the job done.

"Installation can take anywhere from 20 minutes to four hours, depending on what conditions you're dealing with in the individual user environment," says @Home CTO Milo Medin. "There are three or four markets where we have month-long installation backlogs."

Much has already been done to reduce installation time, he and others note. For example, says Gilbert, "A year-and-a-half ago, it took 46 steps to do the software installation; today, it takes three."

The company is focusing heavily on cutting installation time further, Medin says. Some measures, such as reducing the Netscape browser installation to a one-step vs. five-step process, amount to a time savings of five minutes or so, while others, such as making use of new Universal Service Bus specifications being developed for the PC for broad-band connectivity by Intel Corp., in cooperation with @Home, promise to cut installation time for PCs so equipped by as much as 80 percent.

Reductions in installation time are crucial to the marketability of services,

94 CED/JANUARY 1998

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because trying to avoid generating more demand than the installation pace can handle necessarily means keeping a lid on marketing efforts, which makes it hard to gauge just what the true demand level is.

"There's huge pent-up demand for high-speed data, but we just can't afford to be getting ahead of ourselves," notes Wilt Hildenbrand, vice president of engi-neering for Cablevision Systems Corp.

Like many MS0s, Cablevision, which recently became an affiliate of @Home, has largely limited the marketing effort for its Optimum Online service in Long Island and Connecticut to mailings, though it has now begun using local news-paper ads as well. Two other @Home affiliates, Cox Communications and Comcast Corp., have even begun running low-key TV spots, often linked to retail computer outlets where people can go to

Reader Service

40

see demos of the cable data service. But, in most areas, the risks are too

high when it comes to running high-pro-file promotions. "We're using more aggressive tactics where appropriate, but we're still limited by the size of our ser-vice areas within any given geographic area," notes Don Apruzzese, spokesman for MediaOne Express.

MediaOne has begun using radio in some markets, including the Boston area and Jacksonville, Apruzzese says, but it's hard to put together a message in non-video media that resonates with the casu-al on-line users who comprise the next market segment targeted by service providers. "It's very hard to communicate what 50 times faster means, because the customer doesn't have a frame of refer-ence," he notes, adding that getting across the value of "constant connectivity" is also

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a challenge when dealing with people less on-line savvy than the early adopters.

The wow factor The need to demonstrate what a dif-

ference cable makes to the on-line expe-rience has driven most of the leading high-speed data operations into partner-ships with local computer store outlets. "We see the use of kiosks in computer stores and shopping malls as an extremely effective means of getting people acquainted with what the Road Runner service has to offer, not just in speed, but in content as well," says Scott Opiela, marketing specialist at Time Warner Cable's Albany, N.Y. system.

"There's a 'wow' factor to seeing this service in operation that has strong appeal in the retail store environment," @Home's Gilbert says, noting the bene-fits cut both ways. "There's a great opportunity for partnerships involving manufacturers, retailers and cable opera-tors to take shape in advance of actual retail distribution of the modems them-selves, just because the opportunity to get a service like @Home's is a driver behind the sale of PC hardware and software."

MediaOne is finding the tactic can be valuable to the on-line supplier not only in promoting service awareness, but in encouraging potential customers to pur-chase PCs and related gear, especially Ethernet network interface cards, that are best suited for connection to high-speed data services, Apruzzese says. However, he adds, the retail relationship can be a mixed bag.

"We have some excellent relation-ships where the salespeople understand what we're doing and see it as offering them opportunities to sell hardware and software," he says.

"But there are other stores where that level of interest just isn't there."

Beyond serving as a marketing ploy at this early stage, operators hope the tie-in with retailers leads to retail distribution of consumer-friendly modems that would eliminate the time-to-install barrier. The customer base for high-speed data won't "get into the multimillions of subscribers

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in North America until modems are avail-able at retail stores, and the software interfaces are in place to support simple user installation," Medin says.

Of course, before MCNS modems, due on the market starting this quarter, can reach rete, MSOs must begin using the new modems in the current mode of distribution, renting them as part of the basic service charge. Their ability to do this rests in part on costs and in part on finding ways to seamlessly integrate MCNS units into service areas already connected via non-standard modems.

Adding MCNS modems in service areas already served by proprietary sys-tems will require adding another 6 MHz for the new data feed, though not neces-sarily more headend equipment to sup-port the new channel. Many data system suppliers will soon deliver headend gear for proprietary systems that come with built-in support for adding the MCNS channel at a later date, avoiding the need to add equipment racks.

Perhaps more significantly, propri-etary systems have a huge headstart on the cost curve, with some shipping in volume at under $300 per unit, while prospects for hitting the $300 mark with MCNS modems remain uncertain. "Our esti-mates are that probably not even 30 per-cent of the market will migrate to MCNS modems next year," says Dick Day, cor-porate vice president and general manag-er of Motorola Corp.'s multimedia sector.

Uncertainties about demand at this point make it difficult to set initial MCNS unit prices or to plan manufac-turing schedules for supply of modems that would be suited for retail distribu-tion, notes Sam Nalbone, vice president and general manager of Toshiba American Information Systems Inc. "People are talking about getting modems into stores by next Christmas," he says, "but, at this point, I haven't received enough information to know whether that's practical next year or whether it won't be until the year after."

Even if MCNS support is high among MSOs, expectations of only five percent penetration could cool retailers' ardor,

Nalbone adds. "If you're looking at split-ting a market base of 100,000 potential customers in a given region among many retailers, the handful of buyers any one retailer might expect to see could make it difficult to justify allocating shelf space to the equipment," he says.

The answer to when cable data suppli-ers can really expect to see mass market numbers sufficient to make retail distrib-ution of MCNS modems a reality rests with the MSOs' capirnlization programs. Beyond the need to expand marketing, speed the installation process, offer jazzier content and move to standardized modems, the key issue is the pace of net-work upgrades to accommodate rollout

The industry's window of opportunity is finite

of the services, Gilbert acknowledges. "We really only need one thing—

homes," he says. "This is all about get-ting services in front of enough people to allow this thing to build momentum in the marketplace."

The good news is that operators are no longer sitting on the fence with regard to an appreciation of how vital data services and the upgrades that go with them are to the future of the indus-try, Gilbert notes. "I definitely see from all our discussions with operators that they recognize this is the platform that uniquely leverages their infrastructure to get them into the markets that are exploding, including new TV services as well as PC services, and business ser-vices as well as consumer services."

Moreover, adds Medin, the industry now understands that the upgrade cost is nowhere near as high as once thought, with fiber to node serving areas of 1,200 or even 2,000 homes, and coaxial capac-ity of 550 MHz or even as low as 450 MHz sufficient to support good quality data service and reasonable levels of pen-etration. While the cable system must be swept dean of noise leaks, and return path modules must be installed for two-way activation, this is a long way from having to build to 750 MHz capacity and 500-home fiber node specs, he adds.

"We're not talking about spending $200 to $300 per home passed anymore," Medin says. "It's more like $50." By @Home's reckoning, dose to half of all cable systems in U.S. metropolitan regions are suited to upgrading for cable data services at this cost level.

But pushing the upgrade pace as well as hiring more installers and spending more on marketing means MSOs will have to make a bigger commitment to being in the PC on-line market than they have so far. "Waiting for OpenCable to drive MCNS penetration is the wrong approach," says a senior cable data ser-vice executive, asking not to be named.

"Sooner or later, this industry must recognize that there's a huge upside in the on-line business that comes with broadband access that has nothing to do with the TV set."

DSL is getting better Whether or not this attitude prevails is

the key to whether the industry wins recognition in the retail computer market as the supplier of broadband connectivity to the on-line community. As Green notes, the industry's window of opportu-nity as the lone supplier of high-speed access is finite, especially in light of telcos' growing preparations to enter the fray via DSL (digital subscriber line) technology.

"DSL is getting better," Green says. "Now is the time to really push ahead to build the subscriber numbers and pro-vide the incentives manufacturers and retail companies need to make this plat-form widely available." •

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Cablephone flies in the Netherlands A2000 signs $100M contract to build network

A2000 NOC teyrnician Anton Arnhard

BY DANA CERVENKA

Reports of cable telephony's demise may have been greatly exaggerat-ed, especially outside of the U.S.,

where different dynamics are at work, making the service an attractive offering in cable operators' multi-service arsenal.

One case in point is cable operator A2000 Cable Television and Telecom-munications, a Netherlands-based joint venture between United & Philips Communications (UPC) B.V. and US West International formed back in July of 1995. Making news for contracting with equipment supplier Tellabs for $100 mil-lion worth of telephony gear and associ-ated equipment and services over the course of five years, A2000 is offering an unspecified number of subscribers not only telephony, but also a full package of basic services, impulse pay-per-view, and Internet access service, all riding on the same hybrid fiber/coax network.

Though the MSO declines to reveal how many telephony subscribers it has, all totaled, the company has 550,000 cable TV customers in the greater Amsterdam area, of which 120,000 are currently capa-ble of receiving the full menu of services. A2000 is currently offering telephony in the Purmerend, Zaandam and Hilversum franchise areas, and plans to launch com-mercial service in Amsterdam proper early in 1998. For telephony only, the published rate for a one-party, residential service is about $12.25 U.S. per month.

Upgrading for reliability The HFC network providing these

services is a three-layer cake, says A2000's Managing Director, Jack Methven. The first layer is a backbone, self-healing, 14 - hub SDH (synchronous data hierarchy) and analog supertrunk ring structure; below that is a fiber ring structure that

connects 16 fiber nodes, each of which passes 800 homes. As for the RF portion of the network, the forward path is a full 860 MHz; the reverse is 5 to 65 MHz.

Methven estimates that the cost of upgrading the network to prepare for telephony comes in at less than $100 per home passed. "We replaced a dual 450 MHz trunk with fiber; the coaxial plant was left fundamentally intact. And then there was an amplifier platform replacement—we replaced all of the active elements in the network with Philips Broadband Networks' Dia-mond Net product."

While Tellabs was not on A2000's original "short list" of cablephone equip-ment suppliers, according to Methven, after conducting a technical trial of the manufacturer's Cablespan 2300 Universal Telephony Distribution System, the MS0 was impressed enough to purchase the hardware, as well as Tellabs' Cablespan EMS element management system.

Some tweaking was necessary to cus-tomize the equipment to a European mar-ket. Because of the unique nature of the subscriber environment in the Amsterdam area, Tellabs and A2000 worked together to modify the manufac-turer's RSU (remote service unit) into a unit more suited to the planned service environment. To an uninformed observer, the market in Amsterdam looks as if it's composed of dense, three- and four-story apartment blocks. But unlike in the U.S., where there is often a common terminal in the basement that connects all the resi-dents in a building to phone service, in Amsterdam, each apartment is more like a free-standing home, in that each has its own television, its own telephony, and its own power services fed from a location out on the street. Because of that, the

continued on page 102

100 CEO/JANUARY 1998

Time Warner Hawaii chooses VisionTeq LORAL SPRINGS, Fla.-

Oceanic Cable of Hawaii has chosen VisionTeq to supply customized hub and headend combiner/divider networks which will allow routing of individual fiber node inputs and outputs, as well as pro-vide signal insertion/deletion capabilities. This system-wide upgrade, which uses active forward and passive return units, will minimize customer service interruptions when future planned expansions, or new, two-way services are introduced, says VisionTeq.

RELTEC breaks ground

WARREN VILLE, RELTEC Corp. has broken ground on a 40,000-square-foot, build-to-suit facility for its Outside Plant Products business at Cantera, a 650-acre mixed-use development. The company expects to employ about 150 people in engineering, marketing, ad-ministration and financial dis-

M,fb,

1:0•441 Warrenville Mayor Vivian Lund.

and RELTEC's Richard Schwob

and W. Michael Corkran at the

groundbreaking ceremony.

BUSINESS BRIEFS

dplines at its new fadlity, and anticipates jobs will be added as its business expands.

RELTEC's Outside Plant Products business designs, develops and manufactures more than 3,000 individual products under the Rainford and Reliable Electric brand names at existing plants in Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi and Wisconsin in the U.S., as well as in Canada, China, Japan and the U.K. Products indude electronic enclosures for broadband communica-tions, wireless, and wireline networks, as well as pedestals to connect television and tele-phone networks to the home.

3Com sends modems to Suburban subs SANTA CLARA, Cain.-

3Com Corp. is supplying ca-ble modems and other high-speed data-over-cable prod-ucts to residential customers of Suburban Cable. The com-pany began shipping its 3Com External Cable Modem to domestic and international cable companies in August.

The solution purchased by Suburban Cable includes 3Com External Cable Mo-dems and associated headend controller equipment, Ether-Link III network interface cards and Cable Ethernet Installation software.

Suburban has tested and purchased 3Com products for its Internet Cable Access business and will begin offer-ing the complete data-over-cable solution initially to about 100,000 residences served by its two-way enabled systems. The operator is using

Sonet (Synchronous optical network) technology across the majority of its operating area, providing customers with reliable transmission of data-over-cable services.

In addition to providing links to existing local and global content, Suburban is creating a variety of con-tent, including shopping, community and educational activities.

The 3Com Cable Modem, based on ATM technology, is manufactured and sold by 3Com. The product is the result of a licensing agreement and joint development activity between 3Com and Com21.

CableData, Rifkin pact

RANCHO CORDOVA, Calif.-CableData Inc. and MSO Rifkin & Associates Inc. have extended their long-standing relationship. The contract extension is for six years, under which Rifkin will continue utilizing Cable-Data's DDP/SQL customer management and billing sys-tem to manage its 325,000 cable TV subscribers. For 10 years, Rifkin has used Cable-Data's solutions to support operations such as order pro-cessing, collections, charging and billing, as well as transac-tion management and market-ing support functions.

CSG renews contract with Summit DENVER-CSG Systems

Inc., a subsidiary of CSG Systems International Inc.,

has renewed its contract with Summit Communications. Under the renewed contract, the cable operator extended its usage of Communications Control System, CSG's trans-action processing system, and has purchased software li-censes for CSG Advanced Customer Service Represen-tative, a customer care graph-ical user interface that works in conjunction with CCS.

Marcus Cable signs TS'

ANAHEIM—Marcus Cable has signed with Telecommunications Security Inc. (TSI) to exam-ine and develop management security programs for its new system acquisitions.

TSI has completed the first phase of the security program with an evaluation of the operations' practices relative to cable signal securi-ty and related security risks. Additional aspects of the program will indude a com-plete review of warehousing and distribution procedures, analysis of current theft of services procedures, and a review of general security policies.

US Cable rolls out data service

MONTVALE, NJ.—US Cable Corp. has jumped into the high-speed data-over-cable fray, committing to roll out the service in its Wild Dunes system out-side Charleston, S.C. The system will use "Homeworks Universal" modems manu-factured by Zenith Network Systems. II

CEO/JANUARY 1998 101


Have a comment? Contact Tom by e-mail at ctrohinvm',, worldnet att net

Putting Your Money Where Your House Is

BY THOMAS G. ROBINSON, DIRECTOR OF REGULATORY AFFAIRS AND

TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, RIVER OAKS COMMUNICATIONS CORP.

Wow, 1998! Only two years to go until the new millennium. (Or

is it three? I guess 2001 is the

official start, but there sure are a lot of

high-powered parties set for New Year's

Eve 1999.)

I recently attended the 1997 Congress

of Cities, sponsored by the National

League of Cities, which is one of the

largest annual gatherings of local offi-

cials in the nation. At the conference.

there was much talk about the chal-

lenges and opportunities facing cities as

we move toward the new millennium,

and they were many, including the

effects of electric utility deregulation.

environmental concerns, housing and

community services initiatives, telecom-

munications issues, and a host of others.

I participated in a session entitled,

"Telecommunications: Opportunities and

Challenges of Deregulation." where we

discussed some of the telecommunica-

tions-related problems and possibilities

facing local governments. The common

theme that emerged is that the current

hot issues are mainly infrastructure-

related. On the challenge side, there was

a lot of debate and dialogue related to

tower siting concerns and long-standing

right-of-way management problems. On

the opportunities side, there was a large

focus on advancement of infrastructure

(especially a fiber optics backbone. digi-

tal transmission architecture) that could

contribute to economic development.

As part of the panel presentations.

the mayor of Farmington. N.M.. the

largest city in the "Four Corners" area of

the Southwestern U.S., talked about how

the plans of incumbent carriers for his

locale projected considerable timelines

before advanced infrastructure and ser-

vices could be brought to his area. In

tight of this, the city and representatives

from three economic development dis-

tricts. three Native American tribes, four

electric utilities and two non-profit

development groups formed a Regional

Telecommunications Committee to

develop ways to spur both public and

private sector initiatives to bring

advanced infrastructure more quickly to

the Four Corners.

According to the mayor. the

Committee is pursuing the implementa-

tion of a fiber-optic link from Farmington

to Durango. Colo. (the closest current

fiber infrastructure is in Albuquerque,

N.M. and Grand Junction, Colo., both

hundreds of miles from Farmington) as

a first step in the process of providing

Farmington residences, businesses and

institutions with high-capacity, redun-

dant, affordable network connections to

each other and to the rest of the world.

My discussion centered on the rela-

tionship between the advancement of

telecommunications infrastructure and

services in a market and economic

development. The pace of economic

development depends on a multitude of

factors, including affordable housing. an

efficient transportation system. a high

quality of education (and the corre-


Cablephone continued from page 100 RSUs, designed to be mounted on the outside of the dwelling, needed to be mounted in each home. Now called an RiSU (or remote in-home service unit), the box underwent a series of modifica-tions in size, aesthetics and functionality, and facilitates the now-integrated delivery of cable TV, FM radio and telephony.

The RiSUs also have battery backup capability, so that if there's a failure in commercial AC power, the unit can run off the battery inside the unit. Because of regulatory and cost issues, A2000 decid-ed to go with local powering off of the AC mains, which capitalized on inexpen-sive battery backup, as well as the high reliability of the local power grid.

And by next summer, Tellabs will be adding a data port capability to the RiSU so that in-home access to the Internet and other on-line services will be available through the unit, making it an integrated approach for data, voice, video and multimedia applications.

One-step provisioning on horizon

One of the biggest challenges cable operators face when deploying a service like telephony from scratch is managing the network and the service itself. A2000 is using a single network operations cen-ter to provision, monitor and control all of the active network elements for all of its services, as well as to perform "change management," or to manage any activity in the network to ensure that service is not interrupted. The NOC also performs the scheduling and completion of all pre-ventive maintenance, and is responsible for the analysis of all service, technology and customer issues, says Methven.

One of the operator's challenges was to tie its operational support of the cable plant in with that of the telephony service, says Tellabs' Wayne Partington, group manager of product marketing and cus-tomer management. "A2000 was able to effectively define what its operational procedures were going to be, from the standpoint of, how do they take a service order, how does that translate into provi-


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continued from page 102

sponding availability of a trained work-

force), attractive sites for office/plant

locations, the availability and affordable

cost of a diversity of services, a reason-

able overall cost of living and a high

overall quality of life. Telecommuni-

cations can play a significant role in a

number of these factors through

employment of such infrastructure and

services as:

• Intelligent transportation sys-

tems—which can lead to better traffic

flow for workers in both cars and trucks.

• Interactive distance education—

which can enable services such as tele-

training/continuing education at the

workplace or the home for workforce

enhancement, workforce re-training,

placebound instruction, etc.

• Telecommuting—which can assist

greatly in promoting employee flexibility,

enhancing productivity after hours and

during severe weather conditions.

improving physical transportation condi-

tions and decreasing pollution levels.

Cable can directly affect economic development in its own backyard

• Backbone infrastructure—which can

provide the redundant networks, alter-

nate access to long distance carriers,

high-speed LAN interconnections and

competition in the local loop that

employers, large and small. need.

Studies indicate that the availability of

critical telecommunications infrastruc-

ture to spur and expand economic

development may be especially prob-

lematic in the next few years for "third-

tier" markets (less than 250.000 popula-

tion). Consequently. cities in those mar-

kets could have trouble attracting new

businesses or keeping some of the

businesses that they have.

As a major infrastructure player in

local markets, it is crucial that the cable

industry continue to push the infrastruc-

ture envelope in the marketplace.

because it can be both a factor in. and a

beneficiary of. a corresponding expan-

sion in economic development.

There are three key reasons why

such a move can be fruitful:

• The industry is currently positioned

well—With an ever-increasing amount of

glass in the ground, more reliable net-

works being built and planned. and an

escalating level of technical, marketing

and other expertise in providing non-

traditional services, the industry has the

momentum to increase its telecommu-

nications service provider role.

• Subscribers are receptive to cable's

involvement—Contrary to the once-held

view of the average sub as the "Joe Six-

Pack" model, recent studies indicate that

the more technically adept subscriber

base places a higher level of importance

on the presence of the cable provider.

• Cable operators have a direct

influence on the advancement of their

own community —The cable industry is

like any other in certain respects—it

needs a well-trained workforce, its

employees want their kids to have the

best education, the highest caliber of

employee is attracted to growing.

vibrant areas. etc. Unlike many other

industries, though, it has a major abili-

ty to directly affect economic develop-

ment in its own backyard by its own

advancement of telecom infrastructure

and. correspondingly. directly affect the

overall quality of life for the company

and its employees.

I recently had a very frustrated busi-

nessperson tell me that his local phone

company could not even spell ISDN. let

alone provide it to him and his employ-

ees. That. I think, is a giant cue for his

local cable provider to show him that it

can do far more than spell HBO.

Cablephone continued from page 102 sioning of the switch, the Cablespan equipment, and then the actual installa-tion of the RiSU in the home," he says.

"I think the process going forward will be to try to integrate their higher order OSS with our Cablespan element management system to provide one-step provisioning and maintenance of the en-tire telephony service," adds Partington.

Being able to key in one command to handle complete one-step provisioning of the service is a model other MSOs should strive for, he notes, in that the number of personnel required to operate the network can be significantly reduced, thus lowering overall service costs.

So, what makes cablephone work in the Netherlands, when results in the U.S. have been less than hoped for? There are a number of factors that make the mar-ket there more friendly to cable telepho-ny, says Partington, induding a high pen-etration rate for cable (A2000 has about a 95 percent penetration rate), and per-haps even more important, a regulatory climate which encourages competition.

Methven cites some additional fac-tors. "The business fundamentals are strong, the capital costs and the demo-graphics of the market, and subscribers' willingness to switch. And therefore, the revenue that is generated made it an attractive business opportunity. Also, there was a focus on the part of A2000's management to truly be an MSO."

Encouraged by its success thus far, A2000's momentum is not slowing down. "A2000 continues to look at competing broadband technologies in order to deploy the best range of services to our customers," says Methven. "We are aggressively expanding the number of homes passed by a thousand a day, and we have plans in 1998 and '99 to increase our product offering breadth. We went into the market in July of '97 with a (tele-phony) product defined to attract the high-end user and the early adopter, to establish our name in the marketplace, and now, we'll come back into the market next year with products that are attractive to a broader range of the marketplace."


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Status monitoring CHESWICK, Pa.-Tollgrade Com-

munications has announced the Light-house System, an "open architecture" sta-tus monitoring system for hybrid fiber/coax networks. Lighthouse includes status transponders, headend controllers and status monitoring software that enables cable operators to monitor net-works from a central location, identiTy and eliminate network reliability prob-lems and reduce the need for costly dis-patches of repair personnel. The transponders offer low power consump-

tion (less than 1.5 watts), remote configu-ration capability via downloads from the host system, and dynamic frequency agili-ty between 5 and 40 MHz (return path) and 50 and 750 MHz (forward path), based on commands from the host sys-tem. Versions of the new transponders can be adapted for status monitoring applications with a range of industry-stan-dard power supplies, line amplifiers and fiber nodes. Based on a dedicated head-end design and single-board circuitry, the headend controller provides speed and reliability in polling network transponders and managing the acquisition of network alarm information. The Lighthouse HEC communicates directly with the system host or with third-party network monitor-ing systems using SNMP (simple network management protocol). Circle Reader Service number 75.

Line extender STATE COLLEGE, Pa.-C-COR

Electronics Inc. has introduced the I-Flex

Line Extender and the I-Flex Network Management Agent to its family of 862 MHz global RF transmission equipment. The I-Flex Line Extender is tailored to address the needs of the European cabi-net-mount cable TV market for RF trans-mission equipment capable of carrying signals that provide Internet access, pre-mium pay services and telephony. The amplifier offers the operational perfor-mance standards of C-COR's two-and three-active output I-Hex and FlexNet amplifiers in an efficient, one-input/one-output model. The unit uses PHI) tech-nology for increased performance and can carry 60 PAL channels, as well as digital-ly-compressed video signals. A high per-formance push-pull return amplifier allows for two-way operation. For maxi-mum installation efficiency in cabinet, pedestal or wall-mount applications, all connections are located on the bottom of the extender's die-cast aluminum housing.

The network management agent fills operators' needs to monitor, manage and inventory I-Flex technology in C-COR's

Picture-quality measurement system ANAHEIM, Calif.-Tektronix Inc. has announced the PQA200, a picture-quality analysis system. With the new unit, those involved in the deployment and daily operation of compressed television systems, as well as those engaged in the design and devel-opment of TV equipment and the creation of content, can quickly, automatically and objectively measure the quality of video images.

Previously, says Tek, those working with compressed digital video had to use ad hoc methods or costly and time-consuming human viewer trials to measure pic-ture quality. The PQA200 delivers practical, repeatable results quickly (typically, in less than a minute) independent of the types of impairments present, the compression system used, or the video material itself. The unit is useful for applications ranging

from bit-rate optimization to end-to-end system testing. The unit also provides a single, numeric value representing picture quality, called a picture-quality rating (POR). The POR methodology yields results that strongly correlate to those obtained from human viewer trials. Circle Reader Service number 76.

106 CM/JANUARY 1998

CNM network management system. Frequency agility (5-15 MHz reverse, 50-135 MHz forward) makes the agent flexi-ble and highly suitable for a wide variety of channel plans. Downloadable firmware will allow the agent to be upgraded for compatibility with the upcoming CableLabs' standard for outside plant management. An optional reverse path switch will enable operators to isolate and eliminate subscriber ingress. Circle Reader Service number 77.

Fiber option for router NEWBURY, U.K.—A new option for

fiber optic inputs and outputs is now available with MetaWave's MX256 and MX32 SDI routers. As fiber optic trans-port becomes more common for moving video over greater distances, the simple plug-in ability which the router has will make system setup easier and reduce costs, according to the company. Also, the adoption of HDTV will call for the routing of higher bandwidth signals, making fiber the logical replacement for coax cabling when moving HDTV video signals within facilities. The MX256 selectively combines both fiber optic and coax cables as inputs and outputs, according to MetaWave. Both routers are 360 Mbit compatible for use with HDTV technology. The router is com-pact—the basic 128x128 building block of the system occupies only 11 rack

units. Expansion to 256x256 is possible in 44 U without the need for additional DA and combiner rackframes. The MX series also features automatic input equalization and output clock regenera-tion to ensure high picture quality, along with full compatibility with both digital components and digital composite in the same chassis. Circle Reader Service number 78

Cable modem SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Bay Net-

works Inc. has announced a high-speed cable modem which can support from one to 16 users. Designed for multiple PC small office/home office (SOHO) users, the Bay Networks LCP cable modem provides 10 Mbps data trans-mission over existing hybrid fiber/coax cable systems, and adapts to users' requirements for high-speed, low-cost access to the Internet and other on-line services without added network com-plexity. The 16-user LCP modem rep-resents a new breed of intelligent net-work devices, says Bay, that operate at LAN-like speeds. Features include plug-and-play operation, SNMP man-agement and an operational systems support/business systems support pro-visioning server. The modem also offers built-in authentication algorithms and other integrated security functions to ensure that only authorized personnel can access the network. Circle Reader Service number 79.

QAM modulator SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Harmonic

Lightwaves Inc. has announced the avail-ability of its TRANsend QAM (quadra-ture amplitude modulation) modulator, which supports the MCNS standard. QAM modulators perform the forward error correction coding and modulation necessary to transmit digital signals over broadband networks to cable modems,

set-top boxes or digital televisions. The QMM 8000 modulator also supports the Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) standard adopted in Europe. In addition to the modulator, the company's TRANsend product line includes an MPEG-2 encoder and a video transmission plat-form for the headend. Circle Reader Service number 80

Cable assembly HARRISBURG, Pa.—AMP Inc. has

introduced its new Service Cable Assembly which enables users to branch from a splice enclosure on an overhead fiber optic line to an active fiber termi-nation point, such as a fiber node or optical network unit.

The fiber at one end of the cable is exposed and terminated with single-mode connectors and a feed-thru device. The other end of the cable is left unterminated so that it can be spliced for its implemen-tation within a splice closure. The assembly's patent-pend-ing feed-thru device provides all o-rings after the fibers from movement. Circle Reader Service number 81

Service Cable Assembly

complete enclosure of installation to protect hazards such as cable

On-screen monitor POTTSTOWN, Pa.—Videotek Inc.

has introduced the latest member of its VTM-200 family of on-screen monitors. The VTM-180 Multi-format On-screen Monitor accepts two composite analog video inputs, either NTSC or PAL.

Optionally, it receives up to four ana-log stereo pairs and four AES/EBU stereo pairs. The monitor displays pic-ture, waveform, vector and audio for

CED/JANUARY 1998 107

newproducts PRODUCT

each in a full view or in a quadrant of standard SVGA display. Waveform functions include selectable filters, sweeps and magnifications, as well as a full-frame line select.

The VTM-180 also features a new viewing concept—zoom view. The zoom feature magnifies the display, and the graticule is expanded along with the video. The waveform zoom is around black for pedesial set, and around white for white balance set. Vector functions include phase control, and the zoom fea-ture, which allows for viewing the center region and then each quadrant of the vector display. Circle Reader Service number 82.

Termination system HICKORY, N.C.—Siecor Corpor-

ation has developed the FuseLite Termination System which allows di-

rect fusion splic-ing of factory-polished con-nectors to fiber optic cable. The new termination system has been designed for system mainte-

Termination System nance and resto-

REVIEWS

ration, broadband applications, aerial splicing and new construction.

The system provides a connectoriza-tion option at no additional cost, and conveniently converts from a connector splicer to a fiber-to-fiber micro splicer. Its special ferrule design—a connector with a fiber stub installed in the ferrule and polished in the factory—allows fusion splicing within the connector housing. Each multimode or singlemode connector is available in SC, FC and ST-compatible versions. Circle Reader Service number 83

Oscilloscopes PALO ALTO, C alif.—Hewlett-

Packard Company has introduced its Infinium family of oscilloscopes, with bandwidths ranging from 500 MHz to 1.5 GHz, maximum sample rates per channel of 1 Gsa/s, 2 Gsa/s, 4 Gsa/s and 8 Gsa/s, and memory depth of 32 K to 64 K per channel.

This new line of oscilloscopes provides users with an analog-like front panel, because research showed engineers want-ed to keep basic controls simple. As a result, front panel characteristics include separate scaling and positioning controls for each channel; dear, highly visible trig-ger-setup information; and easy-to-access marker and measurement functions.

The oscilloscopes also feature a

Microsoft Windows 95-based graphical user interface (GUI) and a built-in infor-mation system. For those who will use the equipment in a shared lab environ-ment, the oscilloscopes feature default setup keys for users who don't know who last used the equipment.

The Windows 95-based GUI provides intuitive access to advanced features such as new ways to interact with waveforms. For example, users can grab a measure-ment icon and drop it on a selected wave-form feature. Zoom boxes allow users to draw a box, click inside to expand a waveform and zoom in on a particular portion of it for a detailed view. Circle Reader Service number 84.

Transmission link CHRISTIANSBURG, Va.—Force

Inc. has announced the availability of its new Model 2792 ExcelLinx, an FM fiber optic transmission link designed to provide contribution/distribution-quality baseband video and unbalanced stereo audio transmission.

The link pro-vides video and stereo audio more than 90 km (approx. 60 miles) over singlemode fiber, and 15 km (approx. 9.5 miles) over multimode fiber. The link is available in 850 nm, 1300 nm and 1550 nm wavelengths. Circle Reader Service number 85.

MPEG-2 decoder ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—Vela Re-

search Inc. has released its new Four-Channel MPEG-2 SCSI Decoder for ad insertion and near-video-on-demand applications.


The new decoder features a SCSI-2 fast/wide interface (including an option-al Ultra-SCSI) with NTSC or PAL video outputs. Each video channel is indepen-dently configurable with separate gen-lock inputs to allow for the locking of video outputs to external video sources. In addition, each video channel operates independently to allow playback of dif-ferent stream types, video resolutions, compression types (MPEG-1 or MPEG-2) and start/stop times.

The decoder decodes MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 system, program, transport and video-only streams at resolutions of MPEG-1 SIF, MPEG-2 Half D-1, MPEG-2 D-1 (FOE) and MPEG-2 D-1 (AFF). It also has stereo audio outputs with the option of left-audio or right-audio only on both outputs, as well as options for four-channel audio. Circle Reader Service number 86

DWD multiplexer SAN JOSE, Calif.—E-Tek Dynamics

Inc. has debuted its Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexer, an eight- or 16-channel module for increasing fiber capacity in a WDM network.

The multiplexer's ITU channel wave-lengths are spaced at 200 GHz apart with a low typical insertion loss of É 4.5 dB and high typical adjacent chan-nel isolation of ≥ 30 dB. The company guarantees a low polarization dependent loss (PDL) less than 0.1 dB.

The module uses thin-film interfer-ence filters that are extremely stable with 0.003 run/°C thermal wavelength drift and 0.005 dB/°C thermal stability. Circle Reader Service number 87.

Advertising software SALT LAKE CITY, Utah—Frame-

Rate Corp. has announced the release of Version 2.0 of its AdTrak Photo Advertis-ing software for its Millennium products. Integrated with Microsoft Office 97 and Microsoft Backoffice, AdTrak is designed to simplify and expedite the publishing of advertising content to cable TV channels and Internet Web sites.

The AdTrak system uses a forms-ori-ented database approach where users enter ad copy into forms, rather than having to create content in a graphics environment. Content is built using graphics templates that can be cus-tomized for each client. Error checking software catches problems such as miss-ing audio, video or graphics files. Circle Reader Service number

UHF bandpass filters EAST SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Com-

munications & Energy Corporation has introduced two new UHF bandpass fil-ters—Type TT4001-BPU(4) and Model 4001WBP-626(152) (30)E

Type TT4001 incorporates a notch to suppress strong carriers near a desired UHF television channel. It is available for any UHF television between channels 14 and 69. Passband insertion loss is 1.5 dB (maximum). Notch suppression is 25 dB (minimum) for carriers at least 1.5 MHz below the visual carrier. The filter comes with two notches for use on above-band carriers and below-band carriers. VS'WR is 1.23:1. Power handling is 50 watts. Connectors are 50-ohm Type BNC.

Model 4001 passes a segment of the UHF spectrum at cable TV headends, while suppressing adjacent spectrum segments. Passband is 550 MHz to 702 MHz. Insertion loss is 1.5 dB (maxi-mum) and stopband rejection is 30 dB (minimum) from 5 MHz to 536 MHz, and 726 MHz to 860 MHz. Connectors are 75-ohm Type F. Circle Reader Service number 89

Laser light source EVERETT,

Wash.—Fluke Corp. has released its new laser light source, the Fluke LS-1310/1550, for testing single-mode fiber links. The handheld

unit emits calibrat-Laser Light Source ed wavelengths for both 1310 mn and 1550 nm.

The Fluke LS-13 10/155 0 works with Fluke cable testers and digital mul-timeters , as well as any meter that measures optical power or power loss at the standard singlemo de wavelengths. The unit has an output power of -10 dBm. It comes complete with two ST-ST singlemode fiber optic patch cables and ST-ST singlemode fiber optic adapter. Other patch cables are also available, including those for systems that utilize SC and FC connectors. Circle Reader Service number 90

Stream analyzer SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Digital Trans-

port Systems has announced hardware and software improvements to its sec-ond generation MPEG-2/DVB Trans-port Stream Analyzer. Now available in desktop and portable configurations, the analyzer can also be delivered with sin-gle- or dual-channel MPEG-2/DVB transport stream generation capabilities, or upgraded with these capabilities as user needs expand. Circle Reader Service number 91


ReaderService Advanced Networking C-COR Electronics, Inc. RS# 30 C-COR's RF amplifiers, AM headend equip-ment, digital fiber optics, and customized ser-vice and maintenance provide global solutions for your network. p. 79

Passive Devices Inc. RS# 14 P. 57

Construction Equipment Keptel RS# 19 p. 62

Telecrafter Products RS# 5, 23 Supplies drop installation products for CATV, DBS, and wireless operators, single and dual cable fastening products, identification tags, residential enclosures. p. 10. 67

Datacom Equipment 3Com Corporation RS# 37 p. 93

ISC Datacom RS# 40 Manufactures frequency-agile RF modems and translators. Modem speeds to 64 kbps. Builds electronics to specifications. P. 96

Terayon Communication Systems RS# 8

Terayon Communication Systems delivers high-speed, two-way cable modem systems — based on S-CMDA technology — that oper-ate over any cable plant and support both business and residential services. p. 17

Toshiba RS# 39 p. 95

Distribution Equipment Alpha Technologies Inc. RS# 3 World leading manufacturer of power conver-sion products, widely used in cable television, telecommunications, and data networks around the world. Offer a complete line of AC and DC UPS systems. p. 7

Eagle Comtronics RS# 22 p. 65

Philips Broadband Networks RS# 28

A global supplier of broadband RF and fiber optic transport equipment, is also a leading provider of advanced systems used to access broadband telephony and data services. p. 75

limes Fiber Communications. Inc. RS# 16

TFC is an ISO 9001 registered manufacturer of coaxial cable for the telecommunications industry. Committed to quality, service and technology. p. 59

Distributors ITOCHU Cable Services RS# 11 iCS, Inc. is a leading full service stocking dis-tributor, operating ten sales offices and nine warehouses conveniently located in North and South America. p. 54

Power & Telephone Supply Co. RS# 13 Power & Telephone Supply serves the power and communications material distribution needs of the U. S. through 18 strategically placed stocking warehouses, induding a spe-cialized export facility in Miami, Florida. p. 56

TeleWire Supply Company RS# 10 Tele Wire Supply is a leading nationwide distrib-utor of products needed to build and service a broadband communications network. P. 19

Tulsat RS# 26.46 Tulsat Sells, Repairs and Purchases Head-end and Line Equipment. We specialiw» in Traps, Taps, Connectors, Modulators, VCII, ERDs and Receivers. p. 71. 103

Fiber Optic Equipment Coming Incorporated RS# 31

The Coming Optical Fiber Information Center gives you FREE access to the most extensive fiber-optic library in the industry. p. 81

Synchronous Group Inc. RS# 45 The Actair and Antares 1550 nm external modulation transmitters offer outstanding performance and the best specifications in the industry. Perfect for super trunks and direct distribution. p. 97

Headend Equipment ADC Telecommunications. Inc. RS# 1

Leading global supplier of transmission and networking systems. The company holds a pre-eminent market position in physical connectivi-ty products for fiber optic, twisted pair, coaxial and wireless networks worldwide. p. 2-3

Blonder Tongue RS# 18

Quality manufacturer of headend equipment (induding pre-fabricated headends), reception, distribution, MDU interdiction products and test equipment. p. 61

Dawn Satellite RS# 43

Technical information and competitive prices on products such as: satellite "dish" antennas, satellite receivers, digital ready LNBs, modula-tors, processors and a wide variety of related products. p. 99

Harmonic Lightwaves, Inc. RS# 7 A worldwide supplier of highly integrated fiber optic transmission, digital headend and element management systems for the delivery of interac-tive services over broadband networks. p. 13

HollyAnne Corporation RS# 25

Builds a family of EAS products designed for use in cable TV. Also builds in-home device for warning cable TV subscribers. The patented MIP-921 is the only EAS Encoder/ Decoder specifically designed for cable TV. p. 70

Microwave Fitter Co.. Inc. RS# 42 Passive electronic filters, traps and filter net-works for interference elimination and signal processing at the TVRO, headend and distrib-ution equipment. p. 99

PCI Technologies RS# 17 PCI Technologies manufactures splitter/com-biner networks, RF filters from DC to 1GHz, i.e.: deletion filters, diplex filters, banpass, etc., and an array of test signal generators. p. 60

Pico Macom Inc. RS# 36 Pico Macom offers a full line of quality head-end components including satellite receivers, agile modulators and demodulators, signal processors, amplifiers, and completely assem-bled headends. p. 89

Scientific-Atlanta RS# 49 Scientific-Atlanta's new ContinuumTM Headend System for analog and digital applications. This features a vertical pack-aging design which allows for up to forty front-loaded modules to fit into a standard 70" rack. p. 124

Standard Communications RS# 4

The industry's leading manufacturer of rebroad-cast quality satellite reception and RF broad-band products. Delivering programs to thou-sands of CATV and SMATV systems. p. 9

Spectrum RS# 21. 50 The Sub-Alert utilizes the advanced features of the Sage Endec for total automation and will interface with your headend by IF, baseband video or comb generator. p. 64. 14-15

Services (Billing, Contractors, etc.) IMMCO RS# 41 p. 99

National Cable Television Institute (NCTI) RS# 38

National Cable Television Institute (NCTI) is the world's largest independent provider of


broadband industry training; both technical and non-technical. p. 94

P.K. Technology RS# 55 p. 91

Telecom Equipment Chatham Technologies RS)] 34.35

Chatham Technologies is the world's largest integrated supplier of custom electronic enclosures, related products and value-added services. p. 86. 87

Fujitsu Network Communications RS# 9 Manufactures and markets advanced SONET transport and access equipment which mazimizes network operational capacity and services. p. 15

Test Equipment AM Communications. Inc. RS# 48

Om n iStat by AM is the worldwide choice for monitoring HFC telecommunications net-works. It is the standard for ADC, NextLevel, Philips and Scientific-Atlanta. p. 123

Advertisers

Avantron Technologies. Inc. RS# 24

Battery operated, portable Spectrum Analyzers, forward and reverse sweep and ingress monitoring test equipment for the cable TV industry. p. 69

Cable Leakage Technologies RS# 15

With the FCC imposing stiff fines for leakage, CLT presents operators with the only sure, comprehensive method of locating and docu-menting the nearest street address of system faults/signal leakage. p. 58

Cable Resources. Inc RS# 27

Cable Resources otters test equipment to main-tain 5-40 mhz return networks. The RDU dis-plays ingress, noise and carrier levels. p. 73

Hewlett-Packard Company RS# 6.32

1 lewlett-Packard offers a comprehensive range of test equipment to keep your entire broadband system at peak performance from headend to subscriber drop. p. 11 83

Riser-Bond Instruments RS)] 33

Manufacturer of TDRs with unique and exclusive features to locate and identify faults and conditions in metallic two con-ductor cable. p.85

Trilithic. Inc. RS# 12. 20

Trilithic manufactures test equipment for the CATV and LAN industries and components for aerospace and satellite communications. Key products are SLMs, leakage detectors, and a comprehensive line of return test equipment. p. 55. 63

Wavetek Corporation RS# 2 Manufactures equipment for CATV, telecom-munications, wireless, and general purpose test. CAIN equipment includes signal level, analysis, and leakage meters, sweep and moni-toring equipment. p. 4-5

CED Magazine is not responsible for any omissions or any inaccuracies.

Changes to existing information should be faxed to Shannon Sanchez: (303) 393-7449 x233: FAX (303) 393-6654.

RS# PG# 3Com Corporation 37 93 ADC Telecommunications, Inc 1 2-3 Alpha Technologies Inc. 3 7 AM Communications, Inc 48 123 Avantron Technologies, Inc 24 69 Blonder Tongue 18 61 C-COR Electronics, Inc 30 79 Cable Leakage Technologies 15 58 Cable Resources, Inc 27 73 Chatham Technologies 34,35 86,87 Coming Incorporated 31 81 Engle Comtronics 22 65 Fujitsu Network Communications 9 15 Harmonic Lightwaves, Inc. 7 13 Hewlett-Packard Company 6,32 11,83 HollyAnne Corporation 25 70 ISC Datacom 40 96 ITOCHU Cable Services 11 54 Keptel 19 62 National Cable Television

Institute (NCTI) 38 94 P. K. Technology 55 91 Passive Devices Inc. 14 57 PCI Technologies 17 60 Philips Broadband Networks 28 75 Pico Macom Inc 36 89 Power & Telephone Supply Co 13 56 Riser-Bond Instruments 33 85 Scientific-Atlanta 49 124

ADVERTISER INDEX

Advertisers RS# PG# Spectrum 21,50.. 64,14-15 Standard Communications 4 9 Synchronous Group Inc. 45 97 Telecrafter Products 5,23 10,67 TekWire Supply Company 10 19 Terayon Communication Systems 8 17 Tunes Fiber Communications, Inc. 16 59 Toshiba Multimedia 39 95 Trilithic, Inc. 20,12 63,55 Tulsat 26,46 71,103 Wavetek Corporation 2 4-5

Product Showcase Advertisers RS# PG# Dawn Satellite 43 99 IMMCO 41 99 Microwave Filter Co., Inc 42 99

Man of the Year Advertisers PG# ADC Telecommunications, Inc 31 Adelphia 38 Barco, Inc 41 Bay Networks, Inc. 29 C-COR Electronics, Inc. 38 Cable Constructors 48 Cable Leakage Technologies 43 Cablevision Systems Corp. 36 Charter Communications 48 Cisco 45 CommScope, Inc 30

Man of the Year Advertisers PG# Coming Incorporated 51 Cox Cable Communications 27 Discovery Network 47 Eagle Comtronics 46 Exide Electronics, Emerging Technologies Group 42

Harmonic Lightwaves, Inc 44 HBO 25 SC'I'E 28 Jones Intercable 28 Media One 46 NextLevel Systems, Inc.! Broadband Networks Group 34

Norte] 39 Philips Broadband Networks 32 Pico Macom Inc 48 Pirelli Cable Corp. 37 Production Products Co. (PPC) 40 RELTEC 48 Rogers Cablesystems 42 Scientific-Atlanta Showtime 35 Siecor Corporation 42 TCI 44 TeleWire Supply Company 33 Time Warner, Inc 38 Trilithic, Inc 43 Your Choice TV 49 Zenith Electronics Corp 48


CompanyIndex The following companies are cited in articles and features in the current issue. Page numbers refer to where the initial mention takes place in a particular story.

Listings do not include some departments.

3Com Corp. 52, 101 A2000 Cable Television and Telecommunications 100 @Home Network 94 ADC Telecommunications 52, 54, 62, 66, 68, 74 Alpha Technologies Inc. 70 AM Communications Inc 72,74 AMP Inc. 107 Antec 70, 78 Antec Network Technologies 68,72 Avantron Technologies 70,76 Bay Networks Inc. 52, 54, 107 Bellcore 78 BellSouth Corp 14 Broadcom Corp 52, 60 C-COR Electronics 66, 70, 72, 76, 106 C-Cube Microsystems' DiviCom Inc. subsidiary 14 CableData Inc 101 CableLabs 6, 16, 58, 92 CableSery 68 Cablevision Systems Corp 96 California Eastern Laboratories Inc. (CEL) Integrated Solutions Group 52, 62

Cisco 16, 52, 62 Com21 16,70 Comcast Corp. 66, 74, 96 Communications & Energy Corp 109 ComSonics Inc 76 Cox Communications Inc. 12, 20, 96 CSG Systems Inc 101 Digital Transport Systems 109 Discovery Networks 72 E-Tek Dynamics Inc 109 Eagle Comtronics Inc 70 Electroline Equipment Inc. 68, 70 Fluke Corp 109 Force Inc. 108 FrameRate Corp. 109 General Instrument (formerly NextLevel) 12, 18, 52, 70, 74 Harmonic Lightwaves Inc. 52, 58, 107 Headend In The Sky 12 Hewlett-Packard Company 108 Holtzman Company, The 70 Hulck Engineering 76 Integrity Communications 52,56 Ipitek (Integrated Photonic Technology) 66 KaStar Satellite Communications 14 Keptel 78 Libit Signal Processing 52, 60 Lindsay Electronics 70 Marcus Cable 101 Media0ne Express 96 MetaSolv Software Inc 12 Meta Wave 107

Microsoft Corp 66 Motorola Inc 52, 54, 98 NEC America 52 Network Computer Inc. 64 Oceanic Cable of Hawaii 101 Ortel Corp. 66 Panasonic 58 PCI Technologies Inc 70 Phasecom Inc. 52, 58 Philips Broadband Networks 52, 56, 64, 68, 100 Phonex Corporation 62 Power TV RAD Data Communications 62 RELTEC Corp. 101 Rifkin & Associates Inc 101 River Oaks Communications Corp 102 RMS Electronics Inc 66,68 Rockwell Semiconductor Inc. 52,60 Samsung Electronics America 12, 52, 56 Scientific-Atlanta Inc. 16, 18, 64, 68 SEA Inc 14 Sencore 76 Siecor Corp 74, 108 Stanford Telecom 52,62 Suburban Cable Summit Communications Synchronous Group Inc. Tektronix Inc. Tele-Communications Inc. Telecommunications and Technology Policy 122 Telecommunications Security Inc. 101 Telewire Supply 12 Terayon Communication Systems 52, 58, 84 Time Warner Cable 12, 96 Time Warner of Cincinnati 14 Tollgrade Communications 106 Toshiba America Information Systems 58, 98 Toshiba Corp. 52 Tri-Vision Electronics Inc. 12 Trilithic Inc. 76 United Video Satellite Group's DirectCom division 14 US Cable Corp. 101 Vela Research Inc. 108 Video Data Systems 64 Videotek Inc. 107 VisionTeq 101 Ward Laboratories 64 Wavetek Corp 70, 76 Wink Communications 18,74 World Access Inc. WorldGate Communications 18 Yankee Group 16 Zenith Electronics Corp. 14, 64, 101

64

101 101

66,68 76, 106

12,72,92

64


Calendar

e JANUARY

6-8 Taiwan Broadcast and Communi-cations '98. Location: Taipei, Taiwan. Call Cable & Satellite Magazine 011-886-2778-5818.

8-9 Telecommunications Fundamentals, produced by American Research Group. Location: Morristown, NJ. Call (919) 461-8600.

8-10 Caribbean Cable TV Association Annual Conference. Location: San Juan Marriott Resort, Puerto Rico. Call Margaret Dean, CCTA executive director (809) 776-3320.

21 Lincoln Land SCTE Chapter, Technical Seminar. Location: Bloomington, Ill. Call Kevin O'Neill (815) 433-1163 for more information.

26-27 Telecommunications Fundamen-tals, produced by American Research Group. Location: Chicago, Ill. Call (919) 461-8600.

26-29 ComNet '98. Location: Washington, D.C. Call MHA Event

Management (800) 545-3976 for more information.

FEBRUARY

2-4 Wireless Cable International's Winter Show. Location: Singapore. Call the Wireless Cable Association (202) 452-7823.

4 North Country SCTE Chapter, Technical Seminar. Location: Anoka and Wadena Technical Colleges, Minn. Topic: Transportation and distribution systems. Call Bill Davis (612) 445-8424.

8-11 CompTel '98. Location: Las Vegas, Nev. Call the Competitive Telecommuni-cations Association (202) 296-6650 for additional information.

8-12 1998 Western ComForum. Location: Dallas, Texas. Call the International Engineering Consortium (312) 559-4600.

10-12 Australasian Cable & Satellite Exhibition & Conference. Location: Sydney, Australia. Call MC Conferences 011-61-2-9210-5700.

11 Delaware Valley SCTE Chapter, Technical Session. Location: Horsham, Pa. Topic: Competitive access. Call Chuck ToIton (215) 961-3882.

17-19 Philips Broadband Networks Mobile Training Center. Location: San Antonio, Texas. Call (800) 448-5171, or (315) 682-9105.

22-27 OFC '98 (Optical Fiber Confer-ence). Location: San Jose, Calif. Call the Optical Society of America (202) 416-1980.

23-25 CTIRs Wireless '98. Location: Atlanta, Ga. Call CTIA (202) 785-0081.

24-26 Philips Broadband Networks Mobile Training Center. Location: Albuquerque, N.M. Call (800) 448-5171, or (315) 682-9105.

MARCH

2-5 Hands-On Fiber Optic Installation for Outside Plant Applications, pro-duced by Siecor Corp. Location: Hickory, N.C. Call (800) 743-2671, ext. 5539 or 5560.

JANUARY 8-11 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Location: Las Vegas, Nev. Call (703) 907-7600.

28-30 SCTE Emerging Technologies Conference. Call the SCTE at (610) 363-6888.

FEBRUARY 25-27 The Texas Cable Show. Location: San Antonio, Texas. Call (512) 474-2082.

MARCH TBD SCTE Telecommunications Vendors Day. Location: Omaha, Neb. Call Riser Bond Instruments (402) 466-0933.

APRIL 20-23 CO1VIDEX Spring '98. Location: Chicago. Call Softbank (617) 433-1500.

MAY 3-6 National Show '98, produced by the National Cable Television Association. Location: Atlanta. Call the NCTA (202) 775-3669.

JUNE 10-13 SCTE Cable-Tec Expo '98. Location: Denver, Colo. Call (610) 363-6888; Expo hotline (610) 363-3822.

7-11 Supercomm '98. Location: Atlanta. Call the U.S. Telephone Association (202) 326-7300.

I CEO/JANUARY 1998 113

InternetDirectory The following list contains the Internet addresses or E-Mail addresses for advertisers

appearing in CED, and is provided as a service for our readers.

3Com Corporation http://www.3com.com

ADC Telecommunications. Inc. http://www.adc.com

Alpha Technologies Inc. http://www.alpha.com

AM Communications. Inc. hup://www.amcomm.com

Avantron Technologies. Inc. http://www.avantron.com

Barco. Inc. http://www.barco-usa.com

Bay Networks. Inc. http://www.baynetworks.com/ cablemodem/cm

Blonder Tongue http://www.hometeam.com/blonder

C-COR Electronics. Inc. http://www.c-cor.com

Chatham Technologies hup://www.chathamtechnologies.com

CommScope. Inc. http://www.commscope.com

Corning Incorporated hup://www.corningfibeccom

Exide Electronics. Emerging Technologies Group http://www.exide.com

Fujitsu Network Communications hup://www.fnc.fujitsu.com

Harmonic Lightwaves. Inc. http://www.harmonic-lightwaves.com

Hewlett-Packard Company http://www.hp.com/go/catv

ISC Datacom http://www.fasdane.net/—isc

Microwave Filter Co.. Inc. http://www.ras.com/mwfi I t ' mwfilter.htm

National Cable Television Institute (NCTI) http://www.ncti.com

NextLevel Systems. Inc./Broadband Networks Group http://www.nlvl.com

R K. Technology http://www.pktechnology.com

Passive Devices Inc. http://www.pdi-eft.com

PCI Technologies http://www.pcitech.org

Philips Broadband Networks http://www.be.philips.com/pbn

Pico Macom Inc. http://www.piconet.com

Power & Telephone Supply Co hup://www.ptsupply.com

RELTEC http://www.relteccorp.com

CED

Riser-Bond Instruments http://www.riserbond.com

Scientific-Atlanta http://www.sciad.com

Siecor Corporation Ilttp://www.siecor.com

SkyConnect http://www.skyconnect.com

Spectrum http://www.spectrummhz.com

Standard Communications http://www.standardcomm.com

Synchronous Group Inc. hup://www.syngroup.com

Telecrafter Products Email: [email protected]

TeleWire Supply Company http://telewiresupply.com

Terayon Communication Systems http://www.terayon.con,

Times Fiber Communications. Inc. http://www.timesfiber.com

Trilithic. Inc. http://www.trilithic.com

Wavetek Corporation http://www.wavetek.com

Zenith Electronics Corp. http://www.zenith.com

CED Magazine is not responsible for any omissions or any inaccuracies. Changes to existing information should be faxed to Shannon Sanchez: (303) 393-7449 x233; FAX (303) 393-6654.


Classified

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• Jumpstart Your Career

On The Communications Superhighway! CAREER OPPORTUNITIES IN TIIE NORTHERN VIRGINIA \ \ Nledia General Cable of Fairlitx, Fairfax County's premier cable cot iipany serving

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Universal Technician - Responsible for CATV troubleshooting. • Excellent customer service skills a must • Must be able to lift 751bs and climb poles • Some technical experience helpful • Able to work a four, ten-hour work week with evening/weekend shift flexibility

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All levels of Technical Positions - Corporate to Hourly. Operators and

Manufacturers Call or Write. Fees Paid.

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Radnor, PA 19089, Attn. Jim Brennan.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES CONTINUED ON PAGE 116



Provide customers with technical informa-tion, support & training: provide onsite training to customer's personnel in the use of all products; evaluate problems and pro-vide field maintenance. Evaluate product performance and provide input to Engineering department for product improvement. Participate in system config-uration/alignment and create necessary documentation for field projects. Will be required to become certified in the use of aerial lift vehicles, ladders and pole climb-ing as necessary.

Successful candidate will have an ASEE or equivalent plus 3-5 years CATV experience desired. Must have above average skills in written/oral communications. General broadband knowledge a must. Ability to independently solve field problems. Must be able to travel approximately 65%-85% of the work year and/or relocate to a job site if necessary. Awareness of rules and regula-tions of OSHA. F.C.C., and National Electrical Code.

Send resume and salary history in confidence to:

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TIME WARNER CABLE

CHIEF TECHNICIAN, JOB#97-162T LOCATION: HENDERSON, NORTH CAROLINA

TIME WARNER CABLE has an immediate opening for a Chief Technician for the Raleigh Division located in Henderson, North Carolina. Responsibilities include overseeing, managing, and supervising the daily operation of the physical electronic plant at the system level of 665 plant miles (+15,500 subscribers). Supervises, interviews, selects, trains, promotes, schedules, motivates, evaluates, and disciplines technical personnel. Ensures a high level of system technical performance, quality of work, and customer satisfaction. Maintains or supervises inventory control records for testing, repair and installation equipment and materials. Prepares and maintains FCC logs, FCC proof tests, audit complaint reports, along with various weekly, monthly and quarterly reports. Prepares and/or reviews project and purchase authorizations and capital budgets. Handles difficult technical related customer complaints. Serves as liaison with outside contractors and utility compa-nies. Supervises and develops procedures for preventative maintenance on system head-end equipment. May perform preventative maintenance on system head-end equipment. May design map of new construction areas and perform feasibility stud-ies. May perform field tests and evaluations of new materials and techniques. Assists field personnel. On-call duties, during non-business hours, in the event of a system outage. Will support all Division EEO/AA GOals. Other duties as assigned. Qualified candidates should have a high school diploma or equivalent. College degree in engineering, electronics or other related field is preferred. Must have a minimum of three to five years experience as a system chief technician or senior technician, along with, advanced formal electronics education and training. SCTE Broadband Engr. Certification preferred. Experience with plant construction, microwave, satellite earth station, and human resource management is preferred. (Experience with scientific atlanta addressability systems a plus).

Qualified candidates may send resume with salary requirements and Job Number to: Time Warner Cable, JOB NUMBER 97-162T, Human Resources, 2505 Atlantic Ave., Raleigh, NC 27604. Only correspondence with Job Number will be considered. We are an equal opportunity employer and comply with the drug free workplace. Drug screening and background check required.

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TIME WARNER ‘;- CABLE

SIGNAL PROCESSING CENTER MANAGER

JOB#97-158T • LOCATION: MORRISVILLE, NC TIME WARNER CABLE has an immediate opening for a Signal Processing Signal Manager for the Raleigh Division located in Morrisville, North Carolina. Responsibilities include overseeing the proper operation of currently 20 Headends and approx. 20 hubs, along with several 1550 NM fiber layers in use and 5 microwave hops. Ensure consistency of all addressable controllers and billing interfaces with the ability to plan and implement changes as directed. Develop and monitor performance stan-dards for the SPC and the transportation layers. Ensure compliance with all FCC/Franchise relat-ed/Division standards for the SPC and Transportation layers. Establish and review testing to ensure compliance. Provide technical support to the Plant Mngrs. for transportation layers and SPC related items. Ensure product quality/uniformity of physical equipment. Assist w/the design, construction and modification of the SPC and hub network to facilitate the needs of the Division. Responsible for the implementation, operation and maintenance of all OSS systems in the SPC/transport layer. This includes responsibility for the proper operation of OSS systems that collect info, on power supplies, cable modems & other systems not located in the SPC/hub. Develop cost analyses & bill of materials for projects related to the SPC/transportation layers. Maintain a data base of all SPC & transporta-tion layer parameters including equipment used by channel, spectrum usage, VideoCiper assign-ments, test equipment serial numbers, assignments and calibrations. Support other Project Engineers as needed to meet the Division's goals. Supervise SPC Headend Technicians. Other duties as assigned. Qualified candidates should have a HS education or equivalent. 3-5 years mgmt. experi-ence in a Signal Process Center w/detailed knowledge of video waveforms, audio and broadband sys-tem. Exp. with base band & RF signal transportation & fiber. Strong PC skills. Excellent communica-tions skills, both oral and written. Demonstrated ability in decision making. Ability to troubleshoot & resolve a variety of complex systems used in SPC. Knowledge of FCC/franchising compliance issues. Strong presentation skills preferred. SCIE Broadband Engr. Certification preferred. Qualified candidates may send resume with salary requirements and Job Number to: Mme Warner Cable, JOB NUMBER 97-158T, M. Wilder, Human Resources, 708 E. Club Blvd. Durham, NC 27704. Only correspondence with Job Number will be considered. We are an equal opportunity employer and comply with the drug free workplace. Drug screening and background check required.

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capital currents

Here comes the new FCC

Happy New Year, and welcome to a telecom world reg-ulated by a new cast of FCC commissioners. In an un-precedented move, President Clinton appointed four

new commissioners, induding a new chairman, and they took office late last year. In past years, commissioners were replaced only one (or occasionally two) at a time, but more recently, the political landscape has created these "package deals." And most recently, we learned that the chief of the cable bureau plans to resign. Among other things, all of this change guarantees delays in decision-making. But considering some of the decisions made under the last FCC chairman, delay is just fine, thank you.

Once upon a time There used to be seven FCC commissioners, but now there

are five. Some years ago, Congress decided to punish the FCC

By Jeffrey Krauss, FCC watcher and President of Telecommunications and Technology Policy of Rockville, Maryland Have a comment? Contact Jeff

via e-mail at: [email protected]

(for some long-since forgotten transgression) and cut the num-ber of commissioners from seven to five. The main effect was to clear out some valuable office space on the eighth floor of the FCC headquarters building; there was no apparent thought given to improvement in FCC decision-making. And the com-missioners' terms were cut from seven years to five years, stag-gered so that one expires each year.

The President appoints the commissioners and selects one of them to be chairman. No more than three of the five can be from a single political party. Senators from the opposition party (today, it's the Republicans) actually make the selection of the two commissioners from their party. The Senate must vote to confirm the appointees. These things are all worked out in ad-vance. A political logjam a couple of years ago prevented new FCC appointments, so one commissioner whose term expired

Quello) continued to serve as a commissioner past the end of his term, and another (Andy Barrett) simply resigned.

Now, finally, the logjam is broken, and (thank goodness) for-mer Chairman Reed Hundt is gone. He managed to make ene-mies in nearly every industry that the FCC regulates. We have a new chairman—Bill Kennard—and three additional ap-

pointees—Michael Powell, Gloria Tristani and Harold Furch-gott-Roth. The one holdover commissioner is Susan Ness.

The FCC sometimes acts like a judge and jury—adjudicating disputes between parties-- d sometimes like a legislature— adopting new policies that have the force of law. Some of the is-sues that the FCC must deal with are very complicated, and it will take these new commissioners some time to get up-to-speed.

Bill Kennard has an advantage. He was the FCC's general counsel for the past four years, and before that, worked as a lawyer on telecommunications issues. Furchgott-Roth is an economist who worked most recently as a Congressional staffer, and wrote a book in 1996 that argues against rate reg-ulation of cable TV systems. Tristani comes from New Mexi-co, where she served as a member of the state public utility commission. Tristani's reputation on telephone and electric rate regulation is pro-consumer, not pro-business. Powell comes from the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department, where he was chief of staff. Some have speculated that his Sen-ate supporters are looking ahead to the time when his father, General Colin Powell, becomes the next President of the Unit-ed States. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to go to the President and tell him that he owes you a favor because you arranged a nice job for his son?

The commissioners have staff to help them, and some of the staffers have quite a bit of experience at the FCC. But the staffers are simply advisors, not decision-makers. The point is that sever-al of these commissioners have very little background in telecom-munications regulation, and it will take them some time to feel comfortable making decisions.

Cable bureau chief Meredith Jones, who has been chief of the FCC's Cable Bu-

reau, has just announced that she will resign. That shouldn't be a surprise, because traditionally, every new FCC chairman has re-placed some or most of the bureau chiefs. Unlike most of the FCC staff positions that are filled by career bureaucrats, these top-level jobs are filled by appointees who come and go. I would not be surprised to see changes in some other top FCC staff jobs.

The result of new FCC appointments is always a delay in decision-making. For the most part, the FCC sets its own agen-da and timetable. Delay is easy, and there are no penalties. (There are limited exceptions when Congress passes a law that tells the FCC it must make a decision by a specific date. But even in those cases, even where the agency assigns a very high priority to the issue, the decision sometimes slips beyond the designated date. The penalty for breaking the law in this case is verbal abuse at the next Congressional oversight hearing.)

So major decisions on cable policy changes will probably occur later, than sooner. But that's OK with most of us. III


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